


The Dark Revolution

by SugarPucks



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon Divergence, Dystopia, IPL, JRAC, Johto, Johto Regional Administrative Counsel, Multi, Team Rocket - Freeform, international pokemon league
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-19
Updated: 2014-04-22
Packaged: 2018-01-20 00:40:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 26,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1490341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SugarPucks/pseuds/SugarPucks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Decades after Red's legendary Pokémon journey, Johto has fallen under the rule of JRAC; the Johto Regional Administrative Counsel. Using powerful Psychic Pokémon as their weapons, they have turned the region into a police state. The 'extinction' of the Dark-type Pokémon species have left little resistance to their oppressive laws and regulations. Combined with the over-reaching arm of the International Pokemon League, aspiring trainers are left with scraps when it comes to catching and training their own Pokémon. They have pushed their citizens into a constant state of fear, both of losing their lives and their Pokémon. </p><p>But there is hope. Even in the most unlikely of places, there is always strength in the partnership of a boy and his Pokémon...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In The Beginning

“One more week and he’s society’s problem.”

I could hear the security guards from the other side of the door as I sat in the dark, waiting patiently for my ‘time out’ to be over. Three days without a shower or any direct sunlight didn’t help my wounds much. The cut on my cheek reeked of infection, and I couldn’t tell if it was the isolation in the darkness or the proximity of the cut to my eye that made it harder to see out of. One way or another, soon enough they would let me out so I could go to the infirmary. No point in stressing over it; like they said: one more week and I’ll be eighteen years old, and this ten-year nightmare will be over.

“You’d figure he would have learned by now,” one guard continued while the clock wound down. “Him and that stupid simulator. Thing has to be as old as he is but he just won’t give it up no matter how they gang up on him. He’s a scrappy little bastard, but Lord knows what’s going to happen to him out in the real world.”

“Well,” the other said, “if the statistics are worth anything, he’s got about a 50/50 chance of going from this system right into another one. I blame the government honestly… since the JRAC was founded, there’ve been a lot of questionable calls. Pinching pennies here and there has caused a lot of socioeconomic stress. Land seizures, tax hikes, censoring and limiting the internet and communication… I mean, even us here. Who would have the nerve to merge juvenile detention centers and orphanages? It’s like they’re setting kids like him up for failure. When he got here he wasn’t the feisty little shit he is today. Once he’s out in the world…”

“Believe me, I know. And I don’t like it either. But until something changes with the higher-ups and out tax money starts getting spent more sensibly, we’re gonna have to keep our mouths shut and keep these poor bastards at arm’s length.”

“Yeah. Alright, it’s time. HEY SCARFACE! TIME’S UP.”

The heavy door on the padded cell creaked open. My heart dropped a little as the impending blindness in my left eye became more apparent as the cold, bright fluorescent light from the hallway flooded the dim-lit cell.

“Okay, kid, shower up and we’ll return your effects. Then you can go see the doctor about cleaning up that eye.”

I nodded wordlessly, never taking my eyes from the linoleum beneath me as I marched down the hall to the shower area. I’d made this walk enough times that I could do it with my eyes closed.

I caught a look at myself in the mirror as I pulled the raggedy, bloodied clothes off my back. Paler and thinner than usual thanks to my fasting over the last 72 hours. I had to painstakingly close my left eye to focus on just how beat up I really got this time. The bruises and scrapes were glaring against the whiteness of my skin, contrasted only by the greasy black mat of hair on my head, and the dark scruff around my jaw.

The warm water felt great. I sat under the steamy cascade and thought about what lay ahead for me. When my parents ‘disappeared’ and I was brought here, I was borderline catatonic, unresponsive. It all happened in what seemed like an instant, and after the first day, I started to realize that this was more like a prison than a foster home. The only person that gave me any sort of sympathy was the counselor I was made to see twice a week for the first year. He was a straight-shooter; he didn’t sugar coat the fact that I received the shit end of the stick. He told me that I did have an inheritance to the tune of about a half a million dollars, not to mention my parents’ estate, but with the rising cost of putting children up in institutions like this one, that much of it would be absorbed by the Regional Counsel to pay for my stay here over the next decade. The ray of hope at the end of the tunnel was that if I did manage to get through all this, to survive until I was a legal adult, they would be sending me on my way with something very special, that the JRAC would not be able to take from me.

After I dried off and got dressed, and my simulator was returned to me, I made a quick stop-off over in the infirmary. The nurse was appalled that I would bother her in the middle of a Sudoku puzzle, gave me a topical anti-biotic for my near-gaping face wound, then sent for the guards to escort me back to my room, where I would spend the majority of my remaining time in this shithole. The facility itself was surprisingly clean and well furnished, and I couldn’t really complain about a ten-by-ten living space with a bed that wasn’t made of straw, even if the door didn’t lock. Nine times out of ten if someone decided to randomly barge in on me you’d see the same thing: I’d be sitting quietly with my eyes affixed to the backlit screen of my simulator, playing through the same thing for the thousandth time. Time had taken its toll on the aesthetics of the thing, but it still ran what I needed it to. The counselor gave it to me within my first couple of weeks to bring me out of my initial funk and keep my hopes up for the future. He said if I played it enough that it would help me develop knowledge and skills to help me succeed in the real world, dangerous as it was out there. At this point I was just hoping it would improve my odds past 50/50.

The week went by slowly, but surely. The clock struck midnight on April 25th, and I was officially an adult in the eyes of the law. I sat with my head buried in the simulator until the sun rose and the time had finally come to say my goodbyes to this place. There was no going-away party, no special certificates (minus a General Education Degree I had earned last year). I approached the egress hall, another long, fluorescent-bulb ridden, linoleum tiled hallway. The last stop before freedom was at the window where I was given my parting gifts.

A pair of blue jeans, a black t-shirt, a grey light jacket, running shoes, a worn-looking black hat, a messenger bag and…

“Please place your index finger on the reader.” A man said coldly, heaving a metallic plate under the access window. I did. My heart began to race. So close…

A few clicks and dings later, the man slid a small black device under the window to me.

“Alright. This device will act as your means of communication, navigation, digital currency and access to the encyclopedic internet. Your starting balance has been set at $1500. That’s everything. Your pokédex has been synchronized. Good luck!”

But something was missing…

 


	2. A Rough Start

“Um… you sure this is everything?”

I seemed to have startled the guard, who I’m guessing assumed I took off like a bullet once he gave me my pokédex. He looked over his computer for a moment as I examined the weathered black hat.

“ID number?”

“613145.” As if I’d ever forget.

The man’s fingers tapped away at a keyboard.

“Let’s see here… well, there was one additional item. Unfortunately it was confiscated in lieu of the recent additional living cost for the home here in the Northern Johto region.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well, as you probably knew, your inheritance and estate left to you were absorbed by the Johto Regional Administrative Counsel to cover a ten-year stay here at the Ecruteak Home for Wayward Youngsters. However, with the recent jump in taxes for the last quarter, it looks like the cost was adjusted and what was paid in left you about a month short. The pokéball was confiscated and liquidated to cover the last month of your stay here with us.”

“So, what you’re telling me…” I said as I felt the fire burning behind my remaining good eye, “is that every single penny and possession left to me by my parents wasn’t enough to cover a decade of poor care surrounded by criminals and treated as one despite my innocence. So you took a Pokémon left to me by my parents, leaving my income possibilities at next to zero on my first day as a free man in this world.”

He feigned a smile and shrugged apathetically before returning to the monitor in front of him, passively dismissing my grievance.

I hadn’t planned on starting my time out in the world as a criminal. I planned on taking that Pokémon that was promised to me and making my living being a Pokémon trainer. It was my dream every night to rise above all this like a phoenix from the ashes of this prison and become a successful trainer. It wouldn’t have mattered if they gave me a Hoothoot with a lead foot, or a blind Rattata, I know Pokémon inside and out thanks to that simulator. Type effectiveness, growth rates, base stat modifiers…

Without a Pokémon to start off with, starting was next to impossible. The only way to make money with no prior experience or connections these days was the only aspect of life that the JRAC couldn’t touch directly: the International Pokémon League. The world’s economy revolved around it, and if anyone tried to disturb or control the IPL or their practices… well, let’s just says someone tried before and it nearly started a World War.

That didn’t stop the JRAC from toeing the line when it came to it. Taxes and prices everywhere bordered on astronomical, from property all the way to the PokéMart. Besides that, the regulations set in place by this Giovanni guy that ran the JRAC alongside the Johto League Champion, a guy called Rocky, starting up as a trainer meant one of two things. One way was to get lucky enough to get accepted into the Official International Pokémon League Academy at age 10 and be given a starter Pokémon after the first year of the six year program. The other way was to dump tons and tons of money into trying to catch something on one of the several privatized, gated-off areas that were annexed by the JRAC over the last decade or so. They charged ridiculous admission for a small chance to catch half-decent Pokémon with low-quality pokéballs, and even if you managed to catch something, training for battles was very difficult. All trainer battles needed to be moderated by an IPL referee, which was a practice not enforced in other regions. If you managed to find Pokémon in the wild that wouldn’t flee at the first sight of a human being, they were all so low-leveled that progress was very, VERY slow going. On top of all that, the JRAC was ‘snatch-happy,’ by which I mean that even the slightest err outside of the rules would result in the confiscation of your Pokémon. If you were caught on private property trying to catch something without having paid, you were immediately jailed.

All that being said, $1500 as a starting balance was nowhere near enough to even step foot in the right direction of a Pokémon journey. At most, I could find food and lodging for maybe a few weeks, and after that I’d be broke and on my own.

 

“Sir? What about the top of this hat?” I said, holding it against the window with the top showing. He heaved a sigh.

“What do you mean?”

“Seriously? Just look at it.”

He leaned in, squinting.

“I don’t see…”

The sound of the shattering glass as I buried my fist in the man’s nose echoed viciously in the long hallway. I shook the glass off the hat and put it on, then walked nonchalantly out the door into the morning, leaving the man unconscious on the floor behind his little desk. As I walked slowly casually away from the building, half of me wondered how long it would take for them to send some officers after me. I’d heard that guard duty at the Home was something of a part-time gig for actual JRAC officers, so I’m guessing that it may have been a pretty serious offense to bury shards of glass in one of their faces. Only a matter of time until I get to go to big boy prison.

But the other half of me was hungry, so I just focused on that, making my way across the busy streets of Ecruteak towards the one person I wanted to see before they sent me away again.


	3. Carly

I stopped off in the bathroom of a PokéMart to change my clothes and dispose of the rags they gave me to wear in the Home, then made my way toward the western part of the city to a little diner called Slowbro Joe’s. A sliver of hope glimmered in the back of my mind that thinking on a full stomach would present me with more options than reincarceration.

The diner was sparsely dense, as would be expected in the hour and a half or so leading into the lunch rush. I slipped in and grabbed a table away from any windows, sat down, took off my hat and heaved a slightly relieved sigh.

“Well, look who it is!” I heard a voice from behind me as I scrolled through my pokédex. It was the only voice that I knew would make me smile after everything that had happened.

“Hi, Carly,” I said, standing and giving her a hug.

 

Once a month or so, when I was good, they would let me out to wander around Ecruteak with $20, so long as I was back in bed before curfew at 9pm. In this dark and pessimistic lot I was given in life, Carly Jo Gibson was the little light that helped my keep my chin up. She was a bright-eyed, olive-skinned brunette whose head just barely reached the top of my chest. “Slowbro Joe” was her father, and she’s been working as a waitress back since we were both twelve and I came to the restaurant fighting back tears with my broken simulator which had been smashed by an older boy whose nose I’d broken for calling me a worthless bastard.

I was whimpering in a corner booth in the nearly empty restaurant, sipping water and trying everything I could to get the thing to turn back on.

“Are you okay there, sweetheart?” She said to me, looking at me with those big green doe-eyes full of empathy that I wasn’t used to. The softness of her features and the sweetness of her voice lowered my defenses as I shook my head, trying not to cry.

“This is all I really have to keep me from going crazy at that Home…” I said, presenting the crumbling handheld device. “I can’t really afford another one…”

“Aw… lemme take a look.” She put her hands gently over mine and looked at the simulator. There was warmth there that I hadn’t felt since the last time my mother held me. “Oh… hmm… oh! That’s not so bad. Hang tight!” She disappeared into the kitchen for a moment and came back with a small toolbox. “Now, let’s see here,” she said as she put the pieces on the table, sitting across from me. She pulled a thick pair of glasses from her jacket pocket and went to tinkering. Her hands moved quickly and her eyes darted over the motherboard as she tinkered away. Not ten minutes had passed until…

“There! All better, see?” I took it from her tentatively, and sure enough, it started back up like it was brand new. The scuffs and chips on the casing be damned, I could swear it was running faster than it had before. From then on, she became the closest thing to a friend I’d ever had. We would talk for hours on end about everything. She was some kind of an engineering prodigy, apparently, and when she wasn’t waiting tables, she was content to disassemble and reassemble computers of all kinds. She even updated the POS system that the restaurant used to work more efficiently. She was astounded by my encyclopedic knowledge of Pokémon, making me tell her everything that I knew from A to Z. She wanted to be a trainer just like I did… I was just content to have someone I could talk to that wasn’t threatening me or ordering me around. Month after month, year after year, I’d stop in and talk to her until minutes before curfew, sometimes having to take into a full on sprint across town to make sure I was back at the Home before curfew.

Time passed and I was sure that I was in love with her… she was beautiful, smart, relentlessly optimistic, and on several occasions I would get lost in her eyes. When I knew I was about to see her, my heart raced, and when I did, I had trouble keeping it in my chest. But I knew she deserved more than a worthless bastard like me, so I was happy just to have a friend.

 

“Jesus, what happened to your face?” She said, horrified when she saw the left side of it… the big swollen cut and the evident cataract in my left eye.

“Bah. You should see the other guy,” I said, smiling weakly.

“This is the earliest I’ve ever seen you in here… what’s the occasion?”

“You look busy…” I said as I noticed the lunch crowd beginning to shuffle in.

“HEY CHIEF!” She yelled back into the kitchen door. “I’M TAKING MY BREAK!” Someone yelled back an apathetic grunt. “There, now I have some time.” She took off her apron and sat across from me, beaming at me.

“This may be the last time I get to see you for a very, very long time…”

“Oh? Why?”

I explained the events leading up to and following my little sucker punch in the egress hall, from the beating I took last week to the pound or so of glass I left in that guard’s face. I expected horror, but saw only anger in her eyes. She stood up and stormed into the kitchen.

 _Great._ I thought. _Just what I need. One less friend._

She burst back out of the kitchen, her big glasses on her head and her toolkit in her hand.

“Give me your pokédex.” She sat back down and practically ripped it from my hand, pulled the backing off of it, and immediately began tinkering.

She muttered curses under her breath as her probes and fingers darted over the interior of the pokédex.

“Rotten sons of… I can’t believe after all that they would throw you out on the street with practically nothing and expect you to just sit there and take it! Stupid, ugly, rotten, no good, rat bastards…” She finished in minutes. “There!”

“…there what?”

“I bypassed the internal GPS settings and wired an automatic proxy interface into the motherboard. You’ll have to re-register it and recalibrate a few settings but…”

She must have seen the lack of understanding on my face as she spoke, because she stopped short.

“It still works like before, only they won’t be able to track you. The mapping and navigation functions will still work, but it won’t report your position to anyone looking for it, even if they happen across your new ID number once you re-register under a new name.”

“No way…”

“Yeah… nice boy like you deserves a nice present for his first day as an adult, right? I still can’t believe all that they left you from your inheritance was this raggedy hat… I wish I brought my sewing kit for this little tear… wait, what’s this?” She picked at the tear on the front of the hat and pulled out a small, folded up piece of paper.

“Hm?” She handed it to me, and when I opened it, my jaw nearly hit the floor. It was my father’s handwriting.

 

_Keep this hat on_   
_Keep your chin up_   
_Don’t give up_   
_Ecruteak Pokémon Center_   
_Sub-basement 2_   
_Locker 13_   
_You know the combination_

_Love,_   
_Dad_   


“What is it?” Carly asked.

“I have to go…. Thank you for everything. I shot up and made for the door. She stopped me before I got there. I grabbed her face and kissed her. She seemed shocked at first, but when I pulled away, she didn’t seem to protest.

“What was that for?”

“In case I never see you again. Please be safe, and wish me luck.”

I ran out the door and didn’t look back.


	4. Locker Thirteen

The sub-basement of the Ecruteak Pokémon center wasn’t anything particularly special: water heaters, furnaces, maintenance equipment, servers and so on. My father would often take me along when the heating and cooling systems would act up or the reactor core that controlled the Pokémon PC system would glitch. He knew the calibrations and time required to fix those reactor cores could run from hours into days, so he fitted a corner of the maintenance quarters with digital combination lockers to keep a fresh set of clothes or secure his more valuable tools.

It had been so long, I’d forgotten all about it.

I had to wait until later on to make my way into the basement. The first level below was closed to the public about half an hour before curfew at 9. I managed to sneak in and stay hidden until the doors were locked behind me and the security staff changed shifts. The security officers were IPL, not JRAC, so they tended to be a little more lax because of all the failsafes that were put in place with the utility equipment. Even the meanest JRAC officer wouldn’t even think to chase a collar into IPL buildings. If the IPL decided to drop the hammer on someone, their lives were practically over, and their careers would be unsalvageable. This tended to make their security personnel rather comfortable with not double checking the bathroom before they left for the day and locked up until the morning. Either way, I wasn’t heading into the deeper areas of the basement.

Down two flights, through the door and there they were. Most of the lockers were hanging open, seemingly unused for quite some time.

All except locker 13.

It looked like someone had tried to get into it before. Scorch marks and scratches adorned the heavy locking device. I approached it carefully, thinking back to when he showed me how to get into _his_ special locker.

 

_##*##_

_CLEAR_

_91641_

_CLEAR_

_**#**_

_11846_

_ENTER_

 

The lock popped open, and my heart began to race. There was a dark blue backpack, the same one my dad would always take with him when he had to spend long stints in this subbasement. It was faded and well-worn, sewn back together in a few spots. I choked up a bit; it still smelled like him… that distinctive smell of arced metal and heat fumes that came along with the physical work he did on those reactor cores.

“Holy shit…” I said as I opened the backpack to see what was inside. It looked like about $50,000 in banded, unmarked bills cluttered along the bottom, a small leather-bound journal, a Damascus-style 12” bowie knife with a black handle with a brown leather sheathe, a pokéball belt, a pair of black gloves…

And one all-black pokéball.

In the front zipper pocket, there was another note in his handwriting.

_The world must know of the injustices he is responsible for. This journal has all the evidence you need, but no one will listen to you until you make some waves with the IPL. I’m sure this all seems crazy, but I know your mother and I will disappear soon, and the Johto you live in will make it nearly impossible for you to do anything about it without the IPL behind you._

I wiped a tear from my eye. My parents’ disappearance was much deeper than some mysterious accident like I was always told. The JRAC had a hand in it, going all the way to the top. Sons of bitches took them, and my childhood, away from me. There was more writing on the back of the paper.

_As soon as your fingertips touch the black pokéball, it will electronically associate itself with you on a molecular level, and Chaos will be yours. He is fiercely loyal, frighteningly powerful, and he will follow you to the gates of Hell and back if that is where this journey takes you._

_Make us proud, for the sake of the world._

_Your mother and I love you deeply._

_Don’t forget_

_Hat on_   
_Chin up_   
_Question everything_   
_Don’t give up_

_Dad_

Once I folded up the note and put it in my back pocket, I suited up. I put on the belt and gloves, put the sheathed knife on my right side to the back of the pokéball clips, slung the backpack over both shoulders and made my way to the maintenance exit on the other side of the basement. The alarm itself was heat sensitive as opposed to pressure sensitive, more for an emergency fire or radiation exit than anything. I made my way through it, up the narrow staircase that led to an alley on the west side of the Pokémon center.

It was a lot to take in… I sat in the dark alley, clutching my knees to my chest as I tried to regain my composure, breathing deeply. My thoughts wandered to Carly… I should give her a proper goodbye. She deserves that much. As I went to stand, I heard a voice at the end of the alley. 


	5. The Dark Sun Rises

“Well, well, well. And here I thought it’d be more than 24 hours until you made your way back into the system.”

My eyes were having trouble adjusting, especially with my left eye slowly deteriorating… but I recognized the voice immediately. I jumped to my feet with my hands in front of me.

“Stay the hell away from me,” I said to my least favorite guard from the Home.

“Afraid we can’t do that.” Another voice. I could see them now. They weren’t much taller than me but with the kind of abuse I dealt with at the Home, they always seemed to tower over me no matter how big I got. The second voice I remember vaguely, but the first voice was responsible for the nightstick blow that first made the cataract appear in my eye. I pulled the knife from its sheath and pointed it at them. I looked over my right shoulder and found, to my despair, that this was one of the alleys that was bricked off to the south end.

“I said back the fuck up!”

“That guard you hit had a concussion and needed damn near thirty stitches. Assault on an officer… tsk, tsk, tsk…” The knife didn’t seem to discourage them from inching their way toward me as I backed up toward the wall.

“I hate to be cliché, 613145, but we can do this the easy way,” the taller guard said as he cracked his neck, “or the hard way.”

Then, a third voice.

“HEY ASSHOLES!”

_No…_

The guards turned.

She wore a full-face mask, and her hair seemed to be tucked into it. But I could never mistake that voice. A little ball of yellow wool with a yellow globe on a striped blue and black tail stood in front of her, looking mad.

_No, please… you’re gonna get yourself killed…_

“This doesn’t concern you, little girl. It’s after curfew, so I’m gonna give you until the count of ONE to take your little pet and get inside before…”

“Mareep, use Flash!”

“Reep!” The Mareep cried as the globe on its tail began to glow brightly. I shielded my eyes before a brilliant flash of light filled the small alleyway, most likely burning the retinas of the two guards.

“Run!” Carly yelled. I shoved hard past the two incapacitated guards and took her hand, bolting west down the street as the little Mareep trotted behind us.

“Have you lost your fucking mind?! How did you even know where I was going to be?”

“You dropped your note on the way out! Just keep going! If we can make it to Route 38, we can lose them in the forest!”

“What do you mean, ‘we?’”

That discussion would have to wait. I looked over my right shoulder to see the two guards hot on our tails, and what looked like a couple more coming to join them. The borderhouse between the city and Route 38 was close, but they were gaining on us.

We finally hit the door. It was locked.

“Shit… it’s after curfew…” Carly said as she looked at her watch. The only ones allowed out after the curfew was in effect were guards. There were five of them now, and two more figured I dreaded to see. Black spheres looming menacingly in a purple fog.

“Gastly! Hypnosis! All three of them!” They said, pointing at us. The Gastlys emitted at very subtle wave of psionics towards us. The Mareep struggled to stay on its feet, but then promptly fell. Carly was asleep before she even knew what was going on as she crumpled to the ground, unconscious.

I felt nothing…

_The hat…_ I thought with my back against the door.

“He won’t go down. Ah well, he won’t be missed. Both of you hit him with a Shadow Ball!”

The Gastlys glowed a sinister dark purple and shot two balls of energy that hit me center mass, blowing me through the wooden door of the borderhouse. Wood and dust from the drywall and doorframes clouded the interior of the borderhouse as I slammed into the second set of doors that gave but didn’t quite break. I landed sideways, struggling for breath as I tried to sit up. The cut by my eye was now bleeding profusely, and my left eye went completely black. I went to reach for the knife, but found something else. I thought back to my dad’s letter, took off my gloves and clutched the black pokéball in my bare hands.

It was very warm to the touch, and as I held it, the button on the front began to glow. I barely managed to choke out:

“Chaos… I choose you…”

I tossed the ball with what little strength I had, and it shot open as if it had been waiting to do so for a long time.

My eyes widened as the swirling energy materialized in front of me.

His jet-black fur stood on end like spikes.

His skull plate shone in the low light.

His eyes burned red like the belly of Hell itself.

His menacing jaws armed with razor sharp teeth snarled viciously.

Massive claws on massive paws dug into the concrete floor of the borderhouse as it stood strong amongst the smoke.

I thought they were extinct.

From outside, I heard one of the guards say:

“Both of you get in there and finish this!”

Two more Shadow Balls flew my way. Chaos jumped up, quick as lightning, and managed to catch both of them in his great maw, then spat them at the ground like tennis balls as they dissipated into nothing. They didn’t faze him at all.

Gastly is a notoriously mischievous and fearless Pokémon, especially since the mass extinction of Dark-type Pokémon in Johto. They would often laugh in the faces of even the most terrifying Pokémon, taunting them.

The two Gastly stopped dead in their trails as they entered the borderhouse to see if their attacks had left me a corpse and saw Chaos the Houndour, snarling and shooting them a Mean Look. They didn’t laugh. They didn’t even move. They stared, horrified, at the beast that stood before them. The guards followed behind them.

“What’s the holdup…?” One said. Chaos’s fiery eyes shot at the guards, who were immediately paralyzed with fear as well.

“H-how…” They stuttered about how impossible it was for a Houndour to stand before them, wide-eyed.

I could’ve sworn I saw him smirk as a deep voice rang in my head.

_Watch this._

He seemed to draw what little light there was in the room to himself as his thick, muscled forelimbs tensed and it drew a deep breath. A shockwave of dark energy blasted forth from his skull plate and blew both Gastlys and all the guards a solid fifty feet backward, simultaneously blowing out every window in the borderhouse. I stood up and followed him as he stalked out of the house into the open street, where guards and Pokémon alike were taken aback. The half dozen or so guards that retained their consciousness after that Dark Pulse fumbled for pokéballs and sent out everything they had. A slew of Hypnos, Kadabras, a few Golducks and a Slowking all stood ready to attack.

Chaos dug its claws into the street once more, lowered his head and puffed a small cloud of flame from his nose, almost as if to say…

_Bring it._

Psybeams and Psywaves shot his way and seemed to deflect off him like a rubber ball off a concrete wall. When they had each taken a turn swinging at him, he darted into action, fast as chain lightning. His body engulfed in flames he recklessly threw himself into the Kadabras and Hypnos, knocking them out almost instantly.

_Flame wheel._ I thought.

Two Golducks snuck behind him, readying a Water-type attack. He barely shifted his gaze their way before jumping to one side, disappearing in a puff of black smoke, only to reappear behind them, slamming hard into both of them cloaked in dark energy.

_Faint attack._

All the while, the Slowking seemed to sit back, meditating, allowing its Attack stat to max out before making any kind of a move. Chaos looked up and saw him walking strongly and powerfully toward him, each step making the ground shake. The great Cloyster shell on its head was glowing blue with Psionic energy. Chaos dashed toward it, slowly at first, then at a full sprint. The Slowking raised its head back to attack with a Zen Headbutt, but just before the impact, something happened. A swirl of dark smoke wisped from the Cloyster on its head and it stopped glowing… and Chaos’s skull plate pulsed with a dark glow.

_Holy shit… Foul Play!_

Chaos used the Slowking’s own buffed Attack stat increases against it, and slammed into the Slowking’s head, snapping the Cloyster loose with a sickening _crack_ , which made it shrink and devolve back into a Slowpoke. The guards recalled their Pokémon and began throwing pokéballs at Chaos. I recognized the inscription… they were Master balls. Chaos shook them off like dust off his coat, and even headbutted a few of them back at their throwers with extreme prejudice. The only guards that remained were the original two who cornered me in the alley.

_What should I do with these two?_

I heard the voice again, but this time, Chaos looked at me as it happened. He was in my head…

_The one on the left gave me this,_ I thought, tracing my blind eye and the scar down from it.

_Well, then…_ He drew a deep breath and shot a blood-red Flamethrower at them, lighting them up and blowing them away further than before. They got up and frantically tried to put each other out. _Even when the flame goes out, the burn will never stop. Are you alright?_

“I… yeah, I’ll be fine,” I said, dusting myself off. “Thank you.”

_No, thank you. I’ve spent far too long inside of that ball. I’ve been waiting even longer to meet you._ As Chaos spoke to me, in my head, his eyes no longer glowed the menacing red, but resumed a normal state. He had green eyes, like the forest.

The forest.

If we make it to the forest…

We…

I turned back to the door of the borderhouse. Carly and her Mareep were still unconscious, but beside that, upon further inspection, they were unharmed.

“They helped me escape. If we leave them here…” I checked Carly over once again. Thankfully, not even a scrape. I picked her up. “We have to get out of here.”

_Say no more._ Chaos looked into the remaining door of the borderhouse and spit an Ember at it, blowing it to smoldering smithereens. I with Carly and Chaos with Mareep held gently by the wool in his maw, we made our way out of Ecruteak and into the forest on Route 38.

 


	6. A Moment To Rest

The adrenaline didn’t really subside until we were well into the forest. About a mile and a half in, it was clear that we weren’t being followed. And even if we were, Chaos took out most of the presiding guards in Ecruteak, so no one would even hear about this until well into the morning. We stopped where the grass was soft and I put Carly down gently, then put my hands on the back of my head so I could catch my breath. Chaos placed Mareep next to Carly. His acidic saliva burned its wool a little, but only left a little singe. Didn’t matter much either way; Mareeps’ wool grows back astoundingly fast.

“Keep an eye out for some Mint Berries. Psychic-induced sleep fades naturally in Pokémon, but it can be extremely dangerous to humans. She could slip into a coma.”

Chaos nodded, stuck his nose up and took a deep gulp of air.

_Not very far. I will be right back._

He darted off into the forest and out of sight.

I couldn’t help but think of the stories I used to hear from people about Dark-type Pokémon. It didn’t make much mention of it in the simulator, as they were readily available in the wild in all five of the known regions of the IPL, but here in Johto it was said that they all went mad. Something that was inherent in their elemental type turned them into uncontrollable, chaotic evil rogues that feasted on the flesh and souls of the innocent. The strongest Psychic and even Ghost type attacks were shaken off with nary a flinch. They stalked the shadows, thieves, brutes, killers… something happened that stripped them of the moral compass that other Pokémon seemed to have ingrained in their very DNA. The towering Tyrannitar, the devious Sneasel, the man-eating Sharpedo… but feared above all were Houndour and Houndoom. Pack hunting Hellhounds that roamed the face of the planet, dragging whatever they could get their jaws on down into the depths of the Inferno to be feasted upon by the Devil himself.

I chuckled as I thought of this, seeing as mine just saved my life by laying waste to a dozen Pokémon and armed guards. Now he was gathering berries.

As I sat next to Carly and her slumbering Mareep, the pains that the adrenaline rush staved off began to throb back into my being and starting taking their toll. I painstakingly pulled my tattered jacket and shirt off to reveal a massive bruise, black as pitch, on my sternum where the Shadow Balls hit me. I’m sure there were plenty on my back and sides as well, but it hurt too much for me to even check. That backpack full of cash didn’t really lighten the landing as much as I had hoped it would. The bruise on my sternum was very sensitive to the touch. I was almost sure it was broken. The cut by my left eye, through which now I saw only blackness, was still bleeding fairly heavily, dripping down my face onto the grass.

It didn’t matter as much as I thought at first. At least we were safe.

For now.

Chaos was back within minutes with a clutch of berries, which he held at length by the branch, his head high as not to drop them or accidentally drool on them, making them toxic.

_Will this be enough?_ He said, his nub of a tail wagging slightly.

“Should be plenty, yeah. Good job. That was very quick.” I picked a few berries off the branch. They were very pungent, almost like smelling salts more than any mint I’d ever heard of. I placed one in Mareep’s mouth, who stirred, began to chew, then promptly awoke. It looked at Carly laying next to her, then to me with a sad, inquisitive look.

“Reep?” It chirped at me.

“She’ll be okay in a minute or so.” I said, reassuringly patting the Mareep. I crushed a couple of berries between the fingers on my right hand, since my left hand and arm had quite a bit of blood trickling down it. I then gently rubbed the berry juice paste on her gums, and waited. After a minute, she smacked her lips, inhaled deeply, coughed a bit, then opened her eyes slowly.

“Well, look who it is…” she said with a weak smile. Her hand reached out to stroke Mareep’s chin, who “REEP’d” excitedly to see she was okay. Her eyes then landed on the third figure that hovered over her, and she screamed, scrambling backward clumsily until her back was against a tree.

“Shhh!” I hushed at her. “It’s okay!”

“What in blue Hell is that?!” She pointed at Chaos in a terrified whisper. Chaos looked at me, perplexed.

“Don’t act like you’re not scary looking,” I said to the overgrown armored Hellhound, scratching him behind the ear. I leaned on him to help me to my feet. It was a big help that he was in fact overgrown. Houndour were normally just about two feet tall at the shoulder, and Chaos’s head was right about at hip level with me. “This is Chaos. He’s a Houndour that my father left for me in that locker that he mentioned in the note.”

Her breathing was still labored with terror as she looked on warily.

“It’s okay, really. He saved us from those guards and about ten more, AND all of their Pokémon. He took out a dozen JRAC Psychic-types, and when he was all done, he carried Mareep while I carried you all the way out here.

She seemed to calm down a little as Mareep nudged Chaos, urging him to follow is as it walked over to Carly undistressed. Chaos approached her slowly, his head down and submissive, then laid down in front of her as unthreateningly as he could muster. She hesitantly reached out and patted him just above his skull plate, where his head met his thick, meaty neck.

“I… I thought they were extinct. I remember them from the simulator but… he’s a _lot_ bigger than what I remember from his Pokédex entry.”

_I have your father to thank for that,_ Chaos said, looking back to me for a moment, then placing his head in Carly’s lap, letting her pet him more.

“Apparently that was my father’s doing.”

“Oh?” She said, looking my way. From the look on her face, her eyes finally adjusted to the moonlight, because once she got a look at me, she jumped up. “Oh my God what’s wrong with me? Are you okay?” She immediately rushed to my side as I eased myself against a tree trunk and slunk down. “What did they do to you?”

I explained how the Gastly had blown me through the doors of the borderhouse with every intent to leave me a smoldering corpse until Chaos came to my, and eventually our rescue. Worry adorned her face as she gently cleaned my wounds and wiped the slowly drying blood from my arm. Chaos came and laid down on my right side.

_Scratch behind my ear again. It feels delightful._

I laughed.

“What could possibly be so funny when you’re in this state?” Carly asked as she pulled a small first aid kit from the messenger bag at her side.

“It’s just funny to me… He’s a ferocious and powerful Hellhound, but he’s surprisingly eloquent about the fact that he’s still a puppy and likes scritches.”

Chaos huffed.

“Eloquent? Like… he talks to you?”

“Wait, you can’t hear him?”

“How hard did you hit your head? How many fingers am I holding up?” She said, holding three fingers in front of my face.

_The hat,_ Chaos said as I continued to scratch behind his ear. _Let her wear the hat._

I did as he said, and put the weathered black hat on Carly’s head.

“What are you doing?”

Chaos looked at her and must’ve said something, because she dropped the alcohol pads she was using on my face and nearly jumped out of her skin.

“What in the… how…

“Oh. Oh wow that’s unbelievable.

“No, he’ll be fine. I packed appropriately. I have a full first aid kit with me.

“Of course. And… thank you.”

She took the hat off and put it back on my head.

“And?” I said as I used my tattered shit to dry some of the excess blood and antiseptic from my arm.

“He is… very eloquent,” She said with a smile, going back to dressing my wounds. “And your father was an absolute genius. Can I see his pokéball?” I took it from my belt and handed it to her. She took it once she placed the bloodied rags and dressings in their own plastic bag, then pulled her big glasses out and looked at it more closely. Her glasses seemed to have some sort of analytic interface; they bleeped quietly as her eyes darted over the ball, back and front. Then, she took the glasses off, put them back in her pocket and smiled. “I take that back. Genius doesn’t even begin to describe it. This pokéball is completely untraceable and non-transferable. It’s incredibly sophisticated, and at the same time so simple. Even when Chaos is inside this ball, it will register as an empty, non-functional pokéball. And your hat… it contains a digital signature that’s present in Dark-type Pokémons’ DNA which will render the wearer immune to Psychic influence. And, if I’m not mistaken…” She pulled the glasses out once more and looked at the hat, then the ball, “Yep. There’s a digital-psionic connection between the hat and the ball, and the ball itself and Chaos, so whoever’s wearing it can actually hear his thoughts as if he were speaking English. I did a concept paper for something like this in school.”

_She’s pretty clever herself. Your father would have liked her._

_You keep talking about him… it almost feels like you knew him as well as I did… or even better,_ I thought these words to him.

He heaved a sigh, like I’d brought up a bad memory.

Rain began to fall.

“Come on… these days rain leads to thunder and lightning. We need to find some shelter.” She helped me to my feet, and offered me a small white pill and a bottle of water. “This will heal the fractures in your sternum and numb the pain. Let’s go.”

I took the pill and followed her deeper into the forest with Chaos by my side. I limped along as fast as I could as the painkiller started to kick in. About ten minutes passed when we came across a small cave in a rock formation.

_Wait here,_ Chaos said, scouting ahead into the cave, stalking in with his head down. This was our best bet, since the eyes on Dark-type Pokémon transitioned almost instantly from light to low light to no light focus. After a moment, he barked lowly to catch our attention and motioned with a jerk of his head that the coast was clear. It looked as if someone had camped out in there before, but not recently. There was a small bundle of dried kindling that some spiders nested in near the mouth of the cave, out of the range of any rain that might fall. As I eased my way down to a sitting position against a spot near the wall, Carly, Mareep and Chaos set up a small fire pit, which Chaos lit with an Ember snorted from his nose.

We sat silently around the fire as the rain outside the cave drummed a pleasant melody against the trees. Chaos helped me from off the wall then offered himself for me to lie against instead of the craggy cave wall, near the fire.

_So you can always hear me if I think at you like this?_ I asked Chaos as we all stared at the dancing flames.

_Yes,_ he said.

_Can I ask you something?_

_Of course._

_What was my father like?_


	7. The Agent of Chaos

_You have every right to know about your father and me,_ he said as he stared dreamily into the fire. Mareep laid in Carly’s lap as she stroked its wool, deep in thought. _He spoke of you often,_ he continued, _he was always very busy. I know he didn’t see you as much as he would have liked, but the pride in his eyes when he spoke of you was palpable._

_How did you manage to survive the Dark-type extinction?_

_Genocide,_ he corrected me. _It was a coordinated effort of the JRAC to eliminate Dark-type Pokémon because of the threat they posed to Giovanni’s plan. It heavily involved the use of Psychic-type techniques in Pokémon, and our immunity made us a major threat._

He heaved another sigh and he put his head on the ground as he continued.

_I was the runt of a small littler. We lived in a small borough not far from Goldenrod City. They were called Night Squads… the masked men with the black and blue pokéballs. Dusk balls, made specifically for their effectiveness in catching us Dark-types. The squads were making a sweep through the forest, and my mother, brother and sisters all left together, but left me behind. I was so small and weak, I didn’t know what was happening, let alone what to do. I cried and howled all night until I was hoarse, but it was barely a squeak in contrast to the sounds of the Squads tearing across the forests and plains, attacking and capturing every Dark-type they came across. Your father was the one that found me in that borough. Must’ve been at the tail end of that sweep._

_My father was on one of these Night Squads?_

_Yes, but he didn’t know what they were up to. At first, he was told that we were to be collected, and then released in a different region because of the swirling rumors of the uncontrollable chaotic behavior of Dark-types in Johto. But, then he saw what was happening first hand. We were destroyed in our non-corporeal forms… the form we’re in when we exist inside of a pokéball. The living energy was snuffed out into a vapor then released into the air of the night sky en masse using large, pyramid shaped, gunmetal machine in the heart of Goldenrod._

_My God…_

_Your father… it must have been soon after he found out the truth that he came across me. I recognized the Dusk ball as my mother had told us about. I snarled, I tried to bite him… I tried to fend him off, but I could scarcely muster a flame. He threw the Dusk ball away, and pulled out one that was solid black. “Come with me, little one,” he told me. “I won’t let them hurt you.” I didn’t have much choice, so I submitted and took refuge in the black pokéball._

_Inside the ball, I felt warm and safe, and my painful hunger had subsided. I didn’t know if I was alive or dead until he finally let me out. I was confused, frightened, hesitant… I found myself in a large, cavernous, apparently underground room, lit by a few lanterns and nothing else. He didn’t say anything at first, but presented me with a sizable pile of enriched raw meat and a large bowl of water. I ate my fill and drank for my life, and only when I was clearly done eating did he approach me, knelt low, as close to eye level with me without crawling on his belly._

_“Had I know the truth sooner, I would have tried to save more of you,” he said. “You…you are the only one left. If the evil responsible for this injustice is to be contested, many trials lie ahead. We will train in the shadows, far from the light of day. It will be difficult for both of us, but we will persevere. You will be strong. You will be fast. You will not just be powerful. You will be unstoppable. If you will fight with me, we will right the wrongs of this world… together.” He offered his hand to me, and I gave him my paw._

I smiled. That certainly sounded like him… the silent warrior poet.

_I was eight when my parents disappeared… When did he find you?_

_You were still a pup yourself. I never got to see you in person because he thought it was too much of a risk for either of us to do so. He refused to compromise our safety, since working above ground and below with me was putting himself in enough danger as it was. The times he worked on the Pokémon Centers and the nights he spent down there running me ragged… I was unsure when he ever slept. I never let exhaustion be my downfall, because I knew he was more tired than I always was, regardless of how relentlessly he pushed me._

_I knew he worked hard,_ I recalled. The bags never seemed to leave his eyes. _He always made some time for me, taking me along on when he had to fix something in the subbasements of the Pokémon Centers… he taught me everything he could about Pokémon, even when I was very young. Reading to me from those picture books, even the Legend of Red. Hell, I didn’t realize that the book was banned until the first time I asked about it in the Home’s library. He… made me love them. All of them. “We make the world turn together… without them, we are doomed, and the other way around.” I spent my whole life studying them inside and out. That simulator I have automatically updated with the expansion of the Great Pokémon Database… which leads me to ask… how in Hell did you get to be so big? You’re easily five times the size of the pokédex entry for a Houndour._

He smirked his little canine smirk.

_About five years of almost constant training. The food he gave me was heavily enriched with vitamins and minerals. When I began, he also added a synthetic growth hormone that he concocted to my water, since I was severely undersized and malnourished. When I was good and full, he constantly pushed me to exhaustion… weight training, resistance training, agility courses, you name it. After the first year or so, he would bring other Pokémon with him, and taught me how to battle. He used every available Technical Machine he could find to teach me new techniques that I didn’t learn on my own. As time passed and my training continued, I kept getting bigger and stronger… by the time I was 3, I weighed in at 91 lbs and stood just a bit shorter than I do today. He never took it easy on me when it was time to train… I even managed to painstakingly develop resistances to my natural weaknesses._

_I’m surprised you never came to resent him over it. That sounds exhausting in every sense of the word._

_I never could,_ he said, shifting his weight a little. _“Do not misunderstand all of this,” he would tell me. “You are not a weapon of destruction. You are a soldier for peace, an agent of chaos in a world plagued by what is now understood as ‘Order.’ You are a Pokémon, as much an individual as any man or ‘mon that has ever lived or ever will. Don’t ever forget that.” He raised me like I was his own pup… and always referred to you as my brother. When I was finished training for the day, he would sit with me, scratch my ears, hold me… I was four or so when he perfected the design for the hat you’re wearing. He had to take it off several times and calm me down so I could focus my thoughts. I was so excited that he could actually hear me as if I were communicating with another Pokémon. Once we got the hang of it, he taught me the basics of…_ He held out one claw and wrote the words “reading and writing” in the dirt on the floor.

_That’s incredible._

_He taught me a lot._

_Yeah, me too._ I scratched behind his ear and he stretched. I stopped for a moment and stared back into the fire that seemed to show no signs of dying any time soon. _They took him, didn’t they? The JRAC. They took both of my parents._

Chaos nodded slightly and somberly.

_He knew they were coming. I remember the night he told me. “You have to stay in the ball for a while. It may end up being a very long while. Everything is crashing down. They’ll come for me soon. I don’t know what will happen, but the last thing I will ask of you is to take care of your brother. It will take years… but he will come for you. You must be patient, but he is clever. He will find you, and you must be a brother to him, and he to you._

_And I did, didn’t I,_ I said to him, laying my head between the steel ribs across his back. _Don’t worry. We’ll make him proud. Together._

“No offense,” Carly cut the silence in the cave, “But it’s both heartwarming and kind of hilarious watching a silent conversation between a boy and his dog.”

“His brother,” I corrected her as I put my arm around his barrel chest. “I’ll fill you in on the details after a nap,” I said, my eyes becoming heavy all of a sudden. “I need to recharge.”


	8. The Adventure She Always Wanted

I didn’t sleep long. The sun was just barely coming up as I woke. The fire near the mouth of the cave was doused but still smoldering. The highly flammable acid that Houndour and Houndoom used to create flames was unique in that it was very difficult to extinguish. Chaos stretched as I stood up of my own accord. I didn’t see Mareep or Carly.

_They smart up and go home?_ I asked as I wiped the sleep from my eyes.

_She’s not far. You should speak with her. She seemed rather upset._

I nodded to him and walked out into the forest. A stream trickled just off to the west. I walked over to it to throw some water on my face. That’s when I heard her.

She was curled up with her back against a tree, hugging Mareep tightly and weeping softly into her wool.

“I’d be careful if I were you… Mareep are notorious for storing static electricity in their wool,” I said as I sat next to her.

“Oh, sorry… I was just…” She wiped the tears hurriedly from her eyes.

“Look. This… thing, whatever it is… it’s huge. It runs deep, and I have no idea the type of dangers that lie ahead, let alone whether I’ll make it out alive. I wouldn’t hold it against you to go back home to Ecruteak. You can say that I tried to kidnap you or something and that you escaped.”

She laughed through the waning tears.

“What’s funny?”

“It’s silly.”

“Silly? I have a Houndour the size of a Rhyhorn that can read my thoughts. Try me.”

“It’s just… I’ve felt like I’ve been living in a prison myself. Not like you, of course, but… All I ever really wanted was to have an adventure, you know? Travel the world, battling, training Pokémon, meeting new people, finding new gadgets to tinker with. My parents finally got sick of my whining about it and got me this sweet little girl from a farm just west of here a few years ago.”

“Reep! Mareep!” She squeaked happily.

“But the laws in Johto, especially in the city, have gotten so strict about having them out of their pokéballs on public streets, being so snatch-happy… I mean, unless you get accepted in the academy when you’re a kid, you can’t own a battling Pokémon until you’re eighteen. Best I could do was train her on a rubber dummy in our yard, but…” She smiled wide at the little Mareep beaming up at her, “We’d always pretend we were fighting for the Pokémon League Championship, winning against all odds. But, I mean, even to get that far, we’d have to go around collecting badges, battling trainers…”

“So what stopped you?”

“My parents… they’ve seen what I can do with the mechanical equipment and how well I manage the money. I’ve practically managed the place myself since I was fourteen. They figure once I’m old enough they can retire early and leave me to be the cash cow, spending day and night in that place bringing in money so they can sit around and do, whatever, I guess. I’ve always hoped, wished, even prayed that somehow, some way, I could have an adventure… that _we_ could have an adventure,” she stroked Mareep’s ear cone, “before I headed back to that restaurant and ran the place until I grew old and gray. I guess I got my wish…”

“And then some,” I said, putting my arm around her. She laughed as she leaned into my chest and sighed.

“I’m glad you’ll let me come along,” She said, hugging me with one arm. “I always hoped someday we could do something together. Ever since I fixed your simulator and I got you rambling on and on about Pokémon… I would count the days until I saw you again. You had a way of never letting me forget my dream of venturing past the restaurant and into bigger things.”

“It’s going to help a lot having a tech genius like you come along. Hell, I can barely work this pokédex as it is, let alone a first aid kit.”

She blushed and giggled a bit.

“Well, I’m glad I can be useful, too…”

She looked up at me from my chest, and her smile faded slightly. She reached out and traced the slowly healing scar on my cheek.

“Someone’s gonna have to keep an eye on you, huh?” She said, leaning in and closing her eyes.  I did the same, but then suddenly…

“REEP!”

We both looked where Mareep was looking. From across the stream a huge figure’s eyes burned at us. A massive Arcanine, six foot at the shoulder, stared silently but viciously at us. From behind it, a man emerged. We scrambled to our feet.

“Trespassers. Poachers. You know what to do, boy.”

“Woah, hang on, man, this is some kind of misunderstanding…” I said, holding my hands out. The Arcanine stalked forward into the stream.

“Mareep! Shoot a Spark into that stream!” She let forth a small jolt of electricity that landed in the water. The Arcanine’s hair stood on end and struggled to take another step, though eventually it did.

“Run!” I cried out as I took Carly’s hand and turned to flee. We only got a few steps when I realized Mareep was not at our heels, but standing her ground, eyes locked with the Arcanine. “Oh no…”

“Mareep, come on!” She yelled.

“Carly… there’s no running from a trainer battle. Once it starts, they have to finish. It’s in their blood.”

“But…”

“Win or lose, she has to fight.”

“Oh ho, a feisty one, eh? Suit yourself! I’m partial to lamb chops myself! Arcanine! Use Flamethrower!”

The Arcanine drew a deep breath and loosed a pillar of flames that barreled toward Mareep.

“Dodge it! Quick!”

Mareep was much faster than she looked. She leapt gingerly aside and rolled into the stream in which the Arcanine still stood. Its fur still sizzled with electricity. Carly’s eyes widened as she realized…

“It’s paralyzed! Thundershock!” Mareep’s tail globe glowed as it whipped around and shot a bolt of electricity at the great fire dog. It hit dead center, and the Arcanine went down to one knee, snarling.

“One more ought to do it, girl! Let loose!”

Before Mareep could loose the final jolt that would faint the Arcanine, something came flying through the air and hit Mareep in the side, knocking her out of the stream, through the air into a tree. The object spun back into the paw of a Marowak that stood next to the Arcanine’s trainer.

“Mareep!” Carly cried out. Mareep struggled to its feet, gritting its teeth through the pain and growling at the two Pokémon that now menacingly stared her down. “That’s not fair!” She yelled at the man, who only smiled.

“No one ever said it was,” he said darkly.

“And you never said,” I cut in with a smirk, “That this was a double battle. CHAOS! LET’S GO!”

I knew he wasn’t far, and I knew that he knew the rules. Now, this man was in trouble. Chaos emerged from between the trees, snarling with eyes aglow.

“How cute, sending your little puppy dog into battle. Arcanine, use Fire Spin! Marowak, finish the lamb off with another Bonemerang!”

The bone club came flying at Mareep, who braced herself. Chaos stepped in front of her, teeth bared. He caught the bone club in his mouth with little trouble. The look on the man’s face was priceless as he snapped the club in his jaws with a sickening _crack,_ then spat it out like it was a chicken bone. The Arcanine sent another jet of flame their way, which encircled Chaos like a blazing anaconda going in for the kill. Carly gasped and clasped her hands over her mouth. I only smiled as I pointed my pokédex at him for her to see. The intuitive pokédex chimed:

 

Houndour’s activated ability ‘Flash Fire’ not only renders it immune to fire-type attacks and burns, but intensifies the temperature and damaging effects of Houndour’s own fires.

 

As the flames subsided, Chaos seemed to radiate intense heat from his body.

_Hey, of all the things my dad taught you… was Fire Blast one of them?_

_Oh yes._

“Tell Mareep to duck,” I said to Carly.

“Mareep! Take cover!”

Chaos drew a deep breath and spewed forth a massive, blood red pillar of flames at both Marowak and Arcanine. Upon contact, the pillar exploded into a nova that erupted outward, practically hitting them both twice. The flames were so intense that the water of the stream came to an almost instant boil. I counted us lucky that the surrounding forest was still well saturated from the rain, because that attack could have easily started a forest fire. Several trees around the two Pokémon were blown to bits, including the one that their trainer was hiding behind.

“I yield! I concede!” The man cried, recalling his Pokémon into their balls. “Please! Take whatever you want, just don’t let that monster hurt me or my Pokémon!”

“We don’t want ANYTHING from you. We didn’t mean to trespass. We’ll be on our way.” I nodded for Chaos to stand down and he promptly trotted to my side. Carly ran over to Mareep, who limped toward her with all the might she could muster.

“Oh Mareep I’m so proud of you! You were so brave! That was amazing!” I smiled as she coddled her little lightning lamb with all her might. Mareep cooed, then her eyes shot wide open and she cried out. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“Oh sh- Carly, get back!” I pulled her away by the wrist and backed up several yards. “Give her some room.”

“Room for what? What’s going on?” She said as she tried to pull away from me. I hugged her from behind and shushed her.

“Look.”

The pure white glow started in her tail globe, then spread slowly to her extremities. In mere seconds, she was engulfed in blinding, crackling light that expanded slowly at first, then expanded in all directions. When the light faded, a different Pokémon stood before us: light pink rubbery skin, a white wooly mane, and a blue orb at the end of her tail. She stood on two legs, her eyes still closed tight.

Carly was near in tears as she looked at her resilient, brave little sheep opened her eyes and looked at herself.

“Congratulations,” I said, planting a kiss on her cheek. “Your Mareep evolved into Flaafy!”

“Flaafy?” She said through the widest smile I’d ever seen on her face. Flaafy ran elatedly into her trainer’s open arms, cooing and baaing. Chaos and I looked on with a smile.

“How’s that for a start to your adventure?” I asked with a smirk.

She put Flaafy down, turned on heel and promptly threw herself at me, planting a big, wet kiss on my lips, much to my surprise.

“It’s a _great_ start,” she said, “to _our_ adventure.” She smiled and kissed me again.

“Huh…” The man hadn’t left. “You two sure don’t seem like poachers to me.”

“That’s because we’re not. I tried to tell you before you decided to sic your Arcanine on us. We were just passing through. We didn’t realize we were on anyone’s property. Normally, the private areas are very well fenced and labeled to avoid confusion.” Carly held onto me still.

“I sincerely apologize for the hostility, children… there was word of an increase in region-wide security sweeps since a dozen guards and their Pokémon were ambushed some time after curfew in Ecruteak. I could care less myself; the JRAC are a bunch of scoundrels that like to bend the rules to make life hard on the citizens of Johto. I’m guessing they had it coming.”

“Believe me,” The smile had faded from my visage, “they did. We’ll just be going.”

“Wait! Allow me to apologize to you properly after a nice, home-cooked meal for yourselves and your Pokémon. That Flaafy at the very least needs a rest. The JRAC are not allowed on this property without warrant either, even in emergency states. I really must insist.”

I looked at Carly, then at Chaos. They both shrugged.

“Fat load of help you are. Well, I’m hungry. Fine. One meal, then we really must get going.”


	9. Jonathan's Cabin

It was a short walk to the man’s cabin, nuzzled into the woods. I let my worries fall to the wayside a bit since between Chaos’s raw power and Flaafy’s Flash, we could make a quick escape if we needed to.

Also, I was starving.

The man, who introduced himself as Jonathan, looked to be in his late thirties to early forties, dresses inconspicuously, clean shaven with short salt-and-pepper hair.

“I really am sorry for coming after you like that,” he said as his humble log cabin came into view. “It’s taken a lot of fighting, both physically and in courts of law, to keep the JRAC from trying to annex this land and allow the Pokémon that reside here to live freely without fear of capture. I’ve tried to stay vigilant keeping signs and territorial borders well marked, but I suspect either the JRAC or desperate trainers keep tearing them down and wandering in.”

“We’ve had our own problems with the JRAC,” I said vaguely. “We’re both from Ecruteak.”

“You poor things…” He said empathetically. “Please, make yourselves at home. I’ll put some water on for tea.”

The inside of the cabin was anything but humble. He placed Marowak and Arcanine’s pokéballs on a healing station, like the ones in Pokémon Centers. The whole back wall of the house was adorned with glimmering, high tech equipment. Computers, well-kempt bundles of wires going in and out of server boards, other Pokémon Center-type apparatuses, and a three-by-three sectioned set of monitors that cycled between different areas of the forest around his land.

“Wow.” Carly’s eyes darted about at all the shiny gadgets.

“I’ll say,” I said as my eyes panned to the otherwise modest furnishings.

“This land, this cottage, all of this was left to me when my father passed away. He designed the whole thing himself back when rumors started flying about Giovanni returning to Johto. The whole system runs just like the PC system you see at the Pokémon Centers, same global range, same safe space for the non-corporeal forms of Pokémon, even similar data capacity, but it runs off the grid so the JRAC can’t get in. As I said, I’m _very_ anti-JRAC.”

_I’m surprised I sense no danger here. It seems almost peaceful._

I smiled as I sat at the antique wooden table waiting for the kettle to whistle, watching Carly scamper around with her big glasses on, examining every inch of that back wall.

“What do you mean rumors about his _return_?” I asked as he poured four cups and brought them to the table.

“Ever heard of the Legend of Red?”

“Yeah. My dad used to read it to me when I was little. He took down Team Rocket, Teams Aqua and Magma, Team Galactic…”

“Do you remember the name of Team Rocket’s boss?”

I laughed.

“Yeah, so what? It was a story. A legend. A ten-year-old boy that started with a Charmander and ended up being the savior of the world and the Pokémon League Champion four different times.”

“What if I told you that it wasn’t a legend?”

“I’d tell you to make sure you check under your pillow the next time you lose a tooth and you’d find a nickel. I’d tell you that if you’re a good little boy, and you leave some milk and cookies out on Christmas Eve that you’d find just what you wanted under the tree. I’ve seen enough Hell to know a fairy tale when I hear one.”

“Why do you think The Legend of Red is banned in Johto?”

“JRAC propaganda, I assume.” I sipped my tea. It was still very hot.

“Yes. JRAC propaganda that even one boy, with his Pokémon at his side, fighting for the right cause, can bring down a HUGE international crime syndicate, stop the world from ending by bringing peace to two all-powerful behemoths… to be everything you ever wanted to be and more… if you work together with Pokémon instead of trying to control them and use them as weapons of untold destruction and mayhem.” He sipped his tea. “Pokémon in Johto today are more heavily regulated than firearms. It’s rumored that this is how it started when Kanto fell.”

“Rumors. Propaganda. Conjecture, is what it is.”

“ _Seeing is believing_. Why do you think it’s so difficult to get out of Johto? Why do you think you never hear news from the other four IPL regions? They don’t want anyone to believe. They want us all to believe that there is no other way but yielding to the strong-armed will of the JRAC.”

My father’s words rang in my head.

_Question everything._

I sipped at my tea again, this time without burning my tongue.

“I could go on and on, but when you start to realize there are more questions than answers, or that the answers they give are obviously lies, you’ve just begun to scratch the surface of the mess this region is in.”

“I suppose you’re right, there.” I said, scratching Chaos along the thick metal ribs across his back.

“So, I must ask… it’s been nigh on a decade since Dark-type Pokémon were seen in Johto. Where did you manage to get that… is that a Houndour?”

I nodded. “His name is Chaos. My parents disappeared when I was eight and I was sent to live at the Ecruteak Home for Wayward Youngsters. In my years there, the JRAC took everything from me… inheritance, my parents’ estate, everything was liquidated and absorbed. My father managed to sneak him by them.”

“He’s _enormous_ for a Houndour. And strong… I’ve never seen Arcanine take such substantial damage from a Fire-type attack, let alone how he snapped Marowak’s bone club.”

“He’s very special. My father was training him to… I’m not really sure what his intentions were, but he seemed to think that having a strong Dark-type Pokémon would be key in bringing down the JRAC, especially after what they did to the Dark-types in Johto.”

“What do you mean? I was of the understanding there was a mass migration…”

“Propaganda,” I said somberly. I recanted what Chaos told me about the Night Squads, and the genocide of the Johto Dark-types. Jonathan gritted his teeth… his anger was such that he broke the handle from the tea cup he held so gingerly in his hand.

“That… that proves it. Stifling the Dark-type in this region makes their heavily Psychic-type preferences much more clear. The only thing that could stand a chance against a powerful Psychic-type beside Dark-type is Bug-type, and their low Special Defense tendencies make them much less a threat. Rotten bastards…” He slammed his hand on the table over a newspaper, the headline of which read “WANTED.” He looked down at the article, then at my face.  “Wait a minute… it was you, wasn’t it?”

I coughed.

“Me what?” I asked, feigning innocence. He began reading the article out loud.

_Shortly after curfew last night, an unknown assailant and Pokémon laid waste to the Western Ecruteak borderhouse in what is now only speculated to be a radical terrorist attack. The locks were blown apart and despite the efforts of JRAC officers and their valiant Pokémon to contain the attack, considerable damage was done to the interior of the West side of Ecruteak before they retreated westward._

_“It wasn’t like any Pokémon I’d ever seen. I only remember the eyes… the big, red glowing eyes. He came at us from behind. Before I knew what was happening, both of my Golducks had fainted and I was thrown clear down Main Street.”_

_Officer Samuel was one of the twelve officers critically injured in the attack. Two officers suffer from burns on their whole body that, despite medical professionals’ best efforts, show no sign of healing._

_“The two officers that were lit aflame have practically gone mad from the pain. The burns they suffered… seem to have reached a plateau in intensity that has left them screaming in agony even as we speak. Even the most severe third degree burns eventually begin healing when salves are applied, but this is like nothing I’ve ever seen.”_

_The unknown Pokémon is thought to be a remainder of the mass migration of the Dark-types that happened approximately a decade ago. These dangerous, evil Pokémon are never to be approached if seen in the wild, known to have an insatiable hunger for the flesh of human and Pokémon alike._

_The trainer is described as a male, 18-20 years old, of pale complexion with medium length black hair and a tell-tale scar that runs from his left eye down his cheek to his jaw. He matches the description of a boy recently released from the Ecruteak Home for Wayward Youngsters, known only by his ID number 613145. His association with the Pokémon, described only as a quadripedal, dog-like beast with red eyes, is said to be undeniable as he stood back and watched the destruction unfold with a curious smile on his face._

_They were seen fleeing the scene with two captives, a young girl by the name of Carly Jo Gibson and her pet Mareep. Joe Gibson, owner and operator of Slowbro Joe’s on Ecruteak’s West side, mourns her loss and is frightened to think what’s happened to his little girl._

_“I seen that boy in here before. They always talked. Something in him must’ve snapped and he felt like dragging my little Carly down with him. I swear if I ever catch the bastard, I don’t know what I’ll do. I just want my little girl back…”_

_Carly Jo is five-foot tall, of olive complexion with long brown hair. She was last seen being carried off westward into the forests off of Route 38. If you have any information that could lead to an arrest, please contact the Ecruteak Branch JRAC HQ at 555…_

At first, I gritted my teeth as well… then, I couldn’t help but laugh. Jonathan was visibly disturbed.

“What’s funny?” He asked hesitantly.

“You had it right about their propaganda. That was _hysterically_ inaccurate.” I regaled the story from start to finish, from the note, to the hat, to locker 13, to Carly helping me escape, then Chaos saving us both from certain death.

“It’s true,” Carly said, finally putting her glasses away, sitting down and sipping her tea, which was only lukewarm now. “He didn’t kidnap me at all. I ran away on my own, I followed him and hid near the Pokémon center. When I saw that he was cornered and that they were going after him, I couldn’t help myself.” She put her hand on mine. “We’ve been friends since we were twelve.”

“I believe you completely,” Jonathan said, picking up the pieces of his tea cup and throwing them in a nearby trashcan. “I wasn’t sure if you were really on my level when it came to them… now there can be no doubt. They’ll be hunting for you non-stop once they realize what they’re up against. They’ll do everything in their power to make both of you… _all_ of you disappear. This is the Johto Post. It runs across the whole region.”

My stomach dropped. _How the hell are we supposed to get off this rock now?_

A smile stretched across Jonathan’s face.

“My friends, today is your lucky day.


	10. Blend

“Sherry! Come in here! Your tea is finally tepid enough for you to drink! And you have customers!” Jonathan called out the back door of the house that sat between the apparatuses.

A woman, clearly Jonathan’s sister from their similar jaw lines and noses, glided into the house in a very pretty sundress, her flip-flops flapping against the wood floor. She was long and thin, and well tanned. She must’ve really liked spending time out in the sun.

“Hm…” she said as she sipped at her tea. “Friends of yours?” She asked Jonathan, a judgmental tone in her voice.

“Yes, and very obviously _desperately_ in need of your beautification services,” he said.

Carly and I both stood up, and it came to light what a mess we both were. Carly’s hair was frizzy and frayed at the ends. She stared blankly at Sherry as she circled us like a hungry vulture. I myself became very self-conscious; my hair looked like a crow dipped in oil was nesting on my head, and the jagged scar that made me stick out like a sore thumb, not to mention that our little run-in with the JRAC officers left our clothes filthy and tattered.

“In my _professional_ opinion,” she said, “they are beyond repair.”

“But Sherry…” Jonathan began. I held a hand up to him before he could continue. I reached into my old back pack and pulled out a $5,000 banded stack of bills and slapped it on the table, not saying another word. Sherry picked up the stack, examined and counted it. Her expression seemed to change almost instantly.

“Who’s first?!”

 

As snooty and arrogant as Sherry was, it was well deserved. She was an artist. Once we had showered and she began washing and bleaching my hair, she went on and on about how back before they moved away from Ecruteak, she had won several awards and commendations as a beautician, both of people and Pokémon alike. She wasn’t lying.

A thorough washing and harsh combing later, she shortened my hair a few inches and bleached it first, which thanks to the deep jet black color left it an obnoxious orange. Carly, Chaos and Flaafy chuckled as I looked at my electric carrot top.

“Don’t worry,” she said, “I’m not done yet.”

She ended up dying it a rich, chestnut brown, and gave me a nice close shave. I was then made to strip down to my underwear so she could apply a UV treatment to my ghastly white skin, evening it out to what I would consider normal human complexion, in comparison to ‘ghoulish.’ The final touch was a skin tone matched make-up that hid the massive scar on my cheek, which did finally heal over thanks to the medicine that Carly had given me the night before.  

“Now, this will wear off with time,” she said of the makeup, “but if you use this tube in moderation, it should last you several months. She held up a mirror, looking to me for approval.

I was astounded. I looked like a totally different person. The only thing I still felt self-conscious about was my left eye, whose cataract clouded completely over the iris, leaving it an icy blue.

“Now all I need is an eye patch,” I said, “but otherwise I’m speechless. You really are an artist,” I told her with a wide smile and I put my hat back on.

Carly was next. I could swear I could see an impending panic attack when Sherry began to explain her disguise.

“You… you really have to cut it that short?” She said, fighting back tears.

“If you really want to blend, you need a radical change,” I said. “Just look at me!”

“Yeah, but you haven’t spent years growing and grooming yours so it looks like this,” she said, running her fingers through her shoulder-blade length hair. They got caught about half-way through and she winced as she pulled them out. “Well, normally I wash it almost every day, and I don’t get mixed up in getaway missions with devious characters…” She said, smirking.

“You wanted an adventure,” I reminded her.

She heaved a sigh and sat in the barber’s chair with a frown. With each shear into her long brunette locks, she winced like a nail was being pulled from her foot. Once the torment subsided, Sherry dyed her hair pitch black. When it was all over, she looked at herself. I expected horror, but saw only uncertainty. It was shorter in the back, but she had enough bangs to push behind her ears.

“What do you think?” She asked.

I had to choose my words carefully. I’d heard rumors of the fragility of women and their appearance.

“I think you’re as beautiful as ever,” I said, grinning. “That dark hair brings out the green in your eyes.”

“You really think so?” She said, blushing a bit and smiling as she looked at it herself again.

_Smooth_. Chaos quipped.

“That’s what I was going for! And the framing effect with your bangs makes them the highlight of your face.” Sherry said, quite pleased with herself.

“Only until she smiles,” I said, stroking her chin as she beamed.

_I’m going to require insulin soon._

_Pipe down,_ I snapped at him, _you’re next._

_…next what?_

Sherry hesitantly and carefully went to work on Chaos. He was cold, silent and frightening as she bleached, colored, tinkered and tweaked at his short, coarse fur. When she was finished, he… well, he _sort_ of looked like an overgrown Growlithe. Deep orange fur, his rib armor painted black to make stripes, some white tufts of fur extensions for accent on his elbows, and white paint covered his once light gunmetal skull plate and ankle shackles.

“Ta-da!” Sherry said. “Now how about that! What does he think?”

He stood silent and stoic, but I could see the murderous rage and angst in his eyes.

_This is… BEYOND unacceptable. I look like a clown dog._

_Soon as anyone sees you looking like Houndour, our cover is blown. I’d really prefer to do as little murdering and loose-end disposal as possible. It’s either this, or you have to spend day time and any time in a city inside of the ball. I know you hate it in there, but this is the only other option._

Carly and Flaafy stifled back laughter from behind me. I turned and shot them a leer.

“YOU’RE NOT HELPING,” I snapped.

Chaos growled gutturally.

_The ball it is. May I please change back?_

_Sure. Might take a while to get everything back to normal…_

_Nonsense._ He closed his eyes and heat began radiating from him with growing intensity. The dyes and paints melted and evaporated until he looked just like he did before it all began. Sherry looked on with a mixture of shock and discontent.

“No refunds!” She said with a huff.

I nodded with a smile.

_Better?_

His little radiator trick burned paw prints into the wood floor beneath him.

_Good thing you weren’t standing on the rug._

“I’ve managed to procure you some clothes as well. I hope everything fits alright.” He handed me a pair of blue jeans, a black shirt and a grey light jacket. Sherry handed Carly a sundress.

“Um.. no offense, but I’m not a big fan of the overtly girly look... I don’t suppose you have pants or shirts that might be in my size?” Sherry looked as if she was going to say something nasty, then looked once again at the stack of money that still sat on the dining room table.

“I’m sure I could whip something up! I’ll just need to hem them up and adjust them a bit; I’m quite a bit taller than you! Haha!” She came back with a blue tank top, a green hooded sweatshirt and a pair of black skinny jeans. I turned about as she changed into them. After a moment of rustling about, she sighed happily. I turned back around to see her smiling in her new outfit. Everything seemed to fit her just right. The tightness of her clothes left no doubt that she was in fact a girl. Only thing that made me laugh was the extra foot or so of fabric left over on the ends of the legs of the pants.

“I can fix that up for you in a jiffy!” Sherry said jubilantly. It seemed like it only toom moments, without Carly having to even take them back off, for her to snip and hem the ends of the pants, leaving them a few inches above the ankle for her.

“I love it! Thank you so much!” Carly smiled and hugged Sherry, who clearly didn’t see it coming. Her confusion turned slowly to content. Made me wonder when the last time someone hugged her was.

“You’re very welcome, my dear.” She hugged Carly back, finally loosening up and smiling genuinely.

“Now,” Jonathan said, clearing his throat, “All that remains is to _digitally_ disguise you. I just need to jailbreak and modify your pokédexes…”

“Already done!” Carly said with a contented smile as she laced her red sneakers back up.

“Really?”

“Yep.”

“GPS hard resets?”

“Yep.”

“GPS proxies enabled?”

“Yep!”

“Registration reset for new ID numbers?”

“Yep, yep, yep!” She said, still smiling. “Only thing we haven’t done yet is go through and pick new identities.”

I pulled mine from my pocket.

“That will be of the utmost importance if you’re going to have any unexpected run-ins with the JRAC. They can instantly scan the registration information of a pokédex, even when it’s still in your pocket. Once you’ve finished the initial information with your names and cities of origin, you’ll be able to freely surf the internet and make electronic transactions, from money to Pokémon. After you’re done, I’ll calibrate them to my own personal storage boxes so they won’t be able to get a hold of anything that exists digitally. The mainframe itself is locked up underground, and only I have access codes to tamper with it.”

I nodded as I opened my pokédex and tapped the ‘Register’ button on the lower screen. It flashed white, and a question flashed.

Are you a boy, or a girl?

Well, that one was easy.

What is your name?

Now, that’s a question. I could barely remember my birth name a few years after I was assigned a number. 613145. For ten years, it’s all I heard, and it was the only thing I would answer to, because it was the only thing anyone ever called me. I nearly broke down the first time Carly asked, and I had no answer for her but a number. It was burdensome to think that my heritage was fading into obscurity with the passage of time.

But then, my past was of no consequence. The future was what mattered.

Not who I ever was, but who I will be.

What will I do?

Why?

_Hat on_

_Chin up_

_Question everything_

_Never give up_

Fight. I will fight.

So, it’s Mactabo Aequitas?

I entered yes.

“Interesting choice…” Jonathan said. “What does it mean?”

“I will fight for justice,” I said somberly as I chose Azalea Town as my city of origin. “Just call me ‘Mac.’”

He nodded.

“Carly is a common enough name in Johto from what I understand,” Carly said as she finished her own registration. “I just changed my last name to Nocturno. Carly Nocturno from Azalea.” Both of our pokédexes bleeped away as they calibrated themselves, generating ID numbers and updating with the new information. Meanwhile, Jonathan tapped away at the computer.

“And… that should do it. Let’s have those for just a moment, if you would.” We handed him our pokédexes, which he plugged into the computer and tweaked at a few things in a command prompt that I didn’t quite understand. After a moment, all three devices read “SYCHONIZATION COMPLETE.”

“There we are. Your Pokémon in excess of a full party will be transferred here instead of JRAC computers. I’ve also made it so you can make secure calls to this cabin without being tracked. If you need anything or have any questions, please don’t hesitate to call.”

“Thank you,” I said, extending my hand.

“Don’t thank me just yet… I have one more thing to help you along on your journey.” He got up from the computer and walked to the back door, motioning for us to follow him.


	11. The Hidden Cove

Carly’s eyes lit up, and I could barely believe my own.

The land must’ve been about two acres or so, with a small pond in the middle. The borders were high, thick, tall trees that seemed to form a natural wall no less than sixty feet high. Lush, green grass, ample berries, a small gated garden off near the house, and scattered about, playing, resting, running around, were several dozen rare Pokémon. They all looked so happy and peaceful, like the world outside the great tree walls didn’t exist, nor was of any real consequence.

“Oh god, they’re all so CUTE!” She said, almost swooning.

“My father was a bit of an eccentric fellow,” Jonathan said as we stared agape, “but he really loved his Pokémon. The only thing he cared for more than his research was helping new trainers get started on their way. You’re welcome to see if any of these Pokémon like you enough to tag along with you. I’m sure that you could use all the help you can get. They are all very well-fed and strong.”

Chaos nodded approvingly.

_A team will be necessary._

_And we can decide together,_ I said to him.

“Flaaf.” Flaafy huffed.

“Oh, don’t be jealous. You know you’ll always be my number one!” She said, picking her up and hugging her. “But look, we can find a friend to bring along with us!”

“You pick first,” I said to Carly. She squeed and walked excitedly into the grove, letting Flaafy walk next to her. The vibrant young Pokémon didn’t seem to take much note of her, or Flaafy for that matter, as she made her way over toward the pond. A Squirtle that sat playing with some grass saw her coming and dove in. The Pokémon that didn’t flee didn’t pay her much mind, continuing to either eat or play amongst themselves. She sighed and knelt in front of the pond as a Charmander and a Magby skittered off near some bushes. She looked at her reflection in the pond, playing with her long bangs and staring at her dejected reflection in the pond. Just as she went to get up, she saw a little red pair of eyes staring at her from just under the water. They stared at each other for a moment, then they eyes surfaced on a ridged blue face.

“You’re just teasing me, aren’t you?” She said sadly, looking away. Then, she felt a tap on her knee. The Totodile looked at her, huffing. Then, it stuck its tongue out, stretching out its cheeks and made a very ridiculous face.

She laughed.

“Would you like to come with Flaafy and me?” She asked it. The Totodile thought for a moment, with its claw on its chin, looked at the pond, then back at Carly.

“Toto!” It said, nodding happily.

“Haha! Awesome! What do you think, Flaafy?”

Flaafy approached the Totodile and sniffed it judgmentally. The Totodile took a step backward and showed Flaafy both of its open claws, back and front, as Flaafy looked on, confused. It then reached behind her ear cone and produced an Oran Berry. Flaafy was both astonished and impressed as it handed her the Oran Berry with a big cheesy smile. She ate it happily as the Totodile took a bow, and Carly clapped.

“That was magnificent! Welcome to the team!” She held her hand out to shake its claw, but when she did, its whole arm popped off. “Oh no!” Carly said, mortified. The Totodile cringed in pain, only to spin around and reveal that it was a dummy arm. Carly and Flaafy both laughed.

“Ah, little Houdini really seems to like you!” Jonathan said, joining them near the pond. “I’ll transfer his pokéball to you once we finish up here.” Carly, Flaafy and Houdini practically skipped back over near the house as Chaos and I looked on, smiling.

“Okay, now you go, Mac!” Carly said with a big smile.

I nodded, and Chaos and I made our way over toward the pond. The response to Chaos was unanimous terror; all the Pokémon turned tail, ran and hid as they saw him stalking their way.

All but one.

A Bulbasaur, who was nonchalantly drinking from the pond while Houdini charmed Flaafy and Carly, saw us and immediately ran to meet us, glaring intently at Chaos, who was about twice its size. It growled and scratched the ground, huffing provocatively and rearing to fight.

_Ballsy little thing._ I thought. It wouldn’t even be a fair match by any stretch of the imagination, yet the Bulbasaur still snarled. Chaos stepped forward, his head low. It charged viciously at Chaos, meeting him head-to-head but bouncing off of his skull plate. As the feisty little Bulbasaur rolled to its feet, I could see deep scars that ran along its right side.

_This isn’t its first fight, and I’m sure it wouldn’t be its first loss._ Chaos said to me as the Bulbasaur regained its feet and composure, taking another run at him. Chaos dodged it this time, but the Bulbasaur promptly rolled through, spun around and shot its vines at Chaos as it landed. The vines wrapped around him but clearly left him unfazed as he shook them off after a moment. It didn’t give up. A storm of Razor Leaf flew at him, which burned as soon as they made contact with him. It charged Chaos with a snarl, throwing itself at Chaos in a go-for-broke Double-Edge. This time, Chaos took a dive, staying on the ground and submitting. The Bulbasaur panted, but kept its head held high.

“That is one tenacious Pokémon,” I said to Jonathan, who joined me as the Bulbasaur stomped its feet and cried out victoriously. Chaos rolled to his feet and joined me to my right.

“Rosie is a very interesting case,” Jonathan said. “She’s quite old… my father left her to me. As I understand, she was very frequently returned by the young trainers that tried to take her along with them. She’s very headstrong and territorial, and obviously a bit anti-social. The rest of the Pokémon in the grove tend to steer clear of her. Are you sure you want this Bulbasaur?”

“If she’ll have us,” I said, walking toward her slowly. She was still out of breath, but not enough to growl menacingly at me as I approached her. I knelt down before her, and I could see that she had plenty of scars beside the big one on her side. I pulled the sleeve of my jacket over my hand and wiped the makeup off the left side of my face. It must be uglier than I remember, because she seemed to be taken aback a little, though she gave no ground. I looked her dead in the eyes as I spoke:

“I’ve spent my life fighting battles that I was never sure I’d win, too. It made me resilient, resourceful… and it’s cost me plenty. It wasn’t until my friends here came along that I’ve found myself here, away from the prison that bore me, with hope for the future. I need a tough cookie like you on my team. Your resolve is unbelievable, and you’re going to need it on the path we’re blazing. What do you think?”

She had her breath now. She looked around at the lush, safe grove, with its tall walls and quaint little pond. Then, she looked at Jonathan, who nodded approvingly.

“Bulba!” She said with a smile, nudging me over with her head and jumping on top of me. I laughed as I struggled to right myself.

“Well, it’s settled then. A few quick clicks and I can transfer their pokéballs your way.” He sighed as he looked at the six of us, two people and four Pokémon. “It’s hard to believe, but I think between the lot of you, you’ll have an honest shot at taking down the JRAC and making Johto the wonderful region it once was.”

I smiled as I scratched under Rosie’s chin, which she seemed to enjoy. Chaos even smiled a bit, bumping Rosie and jumping around playfully. Carly and Flaafy laughed at Houdini as he pulled a seemingly endless string of seaweed from his mouth. Jonathan went inside and came back out with two pokéballs.

“I only ask one favor of you,” he said as he handed us the pokéballs. We looked at him intently. “If you succeed… if you bring down the JRAC, when you have defeated Giovanni and brought the walls crumbling down around him…”

He teared up a bit.

“…tell him that the Elm family sends their regards.”


	12. Nightmares of the Past, Dreams of the Future

Jonathan and Sherry Elm sent us on our way well-equipped for a journey we’d be spending a majority of away from towns and roads whenever we could manage it. Plenty of medicine and Super potions, some empty pokéballs, dehydrated food, and some water bottles that filtered our impurities at the spout. They even threw in a portable, collapsible tent that fit quite easily into my backpack.

We walked west down route 38 with no Pokémon in tow; the sun was still up, and with the thick forest full of “NO TRESSPASSING” signs and electric fences, we were forced to stay on the main road.

“So…” Carly said as we walked leisurely hand in hand down the beaten path, “Where exactly are we heading?”

“Olivine,” I said, adjusting my hat to face the front with my other hand as the sun began to descend over the horizon.

“What’s in Olivine?”

“With a little luck, our first step toward freedom. Our only other option at this point would be trying to backtrack through Ecruteak toward Kanto and eventually Sinnoh, but even if we made it out that way toward the Lake of Rage past all the JRAC outposts, it’s practically impossible to get into Kanto, let alone _through_ it.”

“Why, what’s wrong with Kanto?”

“A lot, from what I hear,” I said, thinking back to the Legend of Red. “If what Jonathan said was true, and there is some truth in the old Legend of Red, sometime shortly after Red’s victory in the League Championships in Unova, Red returned to Pallet Town, his little home village in the south of Kanto, to find it in ruins. It never mentioned specifics, but even the IPL has lost a lot of power in that region because it’s so dangerous.”

“Dangerous how?”

“Well… Pokémon are considered to be semi-sentient: more intelligent than animals to be sure, capable of communicating with one another, and even we humans through pantomime. They live in family groups, take care of one another, operate in communities in their own ecosystems and so on. It was said whatever happened while Red was in Unova turned all the Pokémon in the region into vicious, feral brutes, over-leveled, very powerful, but lacking in that basic sentience that made them more or less friendly toward humans and others. In the book, Red and his friend Wally were attacked by a pack of overgrown Raticates. Red called out his Charizard to fend them off, but the Raticates were more interested in the easy targets, Red and Wally, as prey. One of them bit off Wally’s left hand, and after calling out Pikachu and Venusaur for help in the fight, they drove them back into the Viridian forest, only barely getting Wally to a hospital in time to stop the bleeding.”

Her grip tightened on my hand as I told that story.

“Whatever ended up happening to Red and Wally?” She asked.

“No one is really sure. The book spans from Red’s humble beginnings in Pallet Town, all the way up through Unova, and the return to Pallet town. The story sort of cuts off unceremoniously around when Red and Wally find Team Rocket’s old hideout in Celadon City. It’s rumored, at least my dad said, that the book actually did have several more chapters, but copies that contained them were lost. A lot of conspiracy surrounds the book itself, which I’m guessing is why it was banned in this whole region. It was adapted into a book based on a journal that Red kept that he would send off to a friend he had in Hoenn.”

“Is that where we’re heading?” She asked.

“Yes, as I said, with a little luck. There’s a cave in Cianwood that leads to Johto’s Orginal Safari Zone past routes 46 and 47. South of route 47 is pure ocean, and if we can find a way south and a little bit west from there, we could be in Lillycove in a couple of days. Once we get to Hoenn, we won’t have to worry as much; as far as I understand, whoever or whatever is in charge of the JRAC hasn’t reached there yet, so it’ll practically be a vacation. Pokémon are allowed out of their balls, the people are nice, trainer battles aren’t heavily regulated like they are here, and the police force are more interested in protecting citizens from evil instead of pretending to protect them from themselves. Hell, there’s even wild Pokémon just running around in the forest to catch at your whim.”

“I like the sound of that,” She said, laying her head on my shoulder. “When all this is over, I want to live in a place like that.”

“When this is over,” I said, looking over the horizon as the sun sat just barely above the tree line, “ _Johto_ will be a place like that.”

“You really think so?”

“I really hope so.”

 

The sun set a few hours later, and as soon as the moon came out, I called Chaos out of his pokéball.

_Is it like, cramped in there? I always sort of wondered what it was like for a Pokémon inside of its ball…_ I asked him as he stretched his legs out and cracked his thick neck.

_It’s like being in a sort of lucid dream state. In our non-corporeal forms, we are still fully aware of our surroundings outside of the ball, we are free to enter and leave consciousness, to rest or remain awake, but it’s dreadfully boring, even when time seems to go by much more quickly._

_I can imagine. The boring part, at least._

Carly let Flaafy out as well. She seemed a bit sleepy as well, stretching and rubbing her eyes, until she seemed to get excited about something, jumping and pointing to what looked like a clearing a few miles down to the west.

“What’s wrong with her?”

Carly smiled. “My parents said they got her from a farm over here, near where routes 38 and 39 meet. It must be down the road a little bit. She must want to say hi to her old family. Alright calm down!” She said, kneeling down and stroking the little pink sheep. “Maybe they’ll put us up for the night. I never met them, but farming folk are supposed to be rather nice… the JRAC tend not to mess with rural folk much.”

Part of me wanted to press forward without stopping. The path we needed to stay on would need us to be more like the wild folk of old… catching Pokémon as companions with apricorns, the first pokéballs, living in trees, living off the land, keeping hidden and safe by using their natural surroundings. It wouldn’t help much if we ended up spending each night amongst people, even friendly people. The JRAC had their way of getting answers out of everyone, not to mention making people disappear.

We pressed on into the night, staying close to the forest’s edge so Chaos could remain hidden from the prying eyes of any passersby in the gradually thickening forest. A couple more hours, as the moon sat high in the sky, we approached the clearing that Flaafy was so adamant about. Apparently her excitement was not to be contained, as she took off in a full sprint down the road.

“Flaafy wait!” Carly said as she trotted after her.

It was almost a quarter mile down the road when Flaafy stopped, her mouth open, staring into the clearing. Carly caught up to her before Chaos and I caught up to the both of them, she also sat agape beside Flaafy. My stomach turned as we joined them, and I immediately understood their visage.

It was definitely a farm once. Wood and steel fences around the perimeter, a few areas gated off, no doubt for Mareeps and Flaafy, perhaps even Ponyta and Rapidash.

Not anymore.

The land where crops once grew were charred and salted, the fences were broken, bent and melted. What remained of a small farmhouse sat charred and dilapidated, collapsed in upon itself along with a great pile of kindling that was no doubt once a barn. Nothing moved, even the trees refused to sway out of some dire reverence.

Flaafy wept silently into Carly’s bosom, who picked her up and hugged her, weeping lightly herself. I put my arm around her, unsure what to say.

“How… who could… what could they have done to deserve this?” She whispered silently into Flaafy’s mane.

“Evil men,” I said. “Evil men who didn’t get their way.” From the look in her teary eyes as I said it, she was beginning to grasp the gravity of the task before us. “I don’t mean to be insensitive, but we should keep moving. If we make a little progress before sunrise, we’ll only be a days’ walk out of Olivine. I doubt you’d want to stay here for the night.”

“How can you look on something like this and… feel nothing?” She said as she stared at what was once likely a happy home. I sighed.

“I’ve seen and heard more things inside the Home than I’ve ever told you, or would ever care to. Death and evil were ever my cellmates in that place. The first friend I ever had was bludgeoned to death with clubs and dragged away in front of me, leaving a trail of blood as they dragged him across the cold linoleum floor and out of sight. The next day, it was like it never happened. The floor was spotless, the smell of blood barely lingered. I was nine.”

“My God…I’m so sorry,” she said, looking attentively at me, still comforting Flaafy, who had dampened Carly’s shirt with her tears and was still weeping softly. I nodded.

“It was a long time ago, but that was the last time I ever even cried. It had been years since I smiled when I first met you. They took my inheritance, my humanity… I don’t even remember my real name. Years inside of that place showed me the true face of the organization.”

I looked down dismally, clinching my fist.

 “The JRAC is an order of cold, heartless, selfish, cowardly individuals. They don’t know right or wrong. They don’t know good or evil. They only know power, and their lust for it. They take, and if something stops them sating them, they find a way, outside of the morals that men, and even Pokémon hold. If they keep going, unchecked, the Hell inside those walls will become a Hell across this whole region. Maybe even the world.”

“Do you think that’s what happened to Red and Kanto?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised. I’d always kind of thought so, but it’s not like there’s any sort of tangible evidence to base it off of. Everything they do is well concealed. Their influence runs deep. Even the media in this region covers for them. If Chaos hadn’t stepped in to stop those Gastlys from landing those last Shadow Balls, the world would have kept turning without me. At worst, someplace in the middle of the paper there would have been mention of some sort of a mechanical malfunction that caused the damage to the borderhouse. I had heard plenty of stories of other atrocities in my tenure at the Home. Lord help the poor boys and girls who told such stories within earshot of the guards. They would disappear too.”

“That’s horrible,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes with her sleeve.

“That’s the reality behind the veil they’ve pulled over the people of this region. It boils my blood, but if I hadn’t been so good at hiding my anger, my sense of justice… I would never had made it out of that place alive.”

We stood in silence for a short while, letting Flaafy regain her composure, listening to the soft winds blowing amongst the trees. The silence was broken by a loud BLEEP from my pokédex. I opened it and looked at it to find nothing wrong, with no alerts or changes. _Strange_ I thought. I looked to Chaos, who sniffed at the wind from the tree line and nodded southward.

“We should really get going. We’ll make our way south for a few hours, catch a nap, and keep heading toward Olivine. If we’re lucky we can make it there by the next nightfall and figure out our next move from there.”

Carly nodded sadly, took my hand once more, and we made our way south.


	13. Love And Terror

A few hours had passed since we started down route 39, and Carly’s yawns were getting closer and closer in proximity to one another. Flaafy took back into her pokéball once she stopped sniffling, but Carly refused to put her down until she at least felt a little better. Small as she was, carrying a thirty pound Pokémon for over two hours clearly took its toll. I took a sip of one of the water bottles and checked our location on my pokédex. It bleeped and glitched for a second, then returned to normal.

“Stupid thing…” I said as I beat it against my hand a couple of times. It indicated we were still about thirty miles from the Olivine city limits. Chaos still hugged the tree line just out of sight.

_You think it would be safe to camp somewhere around here?_ I asked him as he sniffed the air deeply.

_I don’t see why not. I don’t smell anything beside some berry bushes not for from here. It’s raining a bit further south but it smells like it’s heading east. No one is following us that I can tell._

“Hey, let’s find someplace to lie down for the night. We can keep going in the morning.”

“Are you sure?” Carly said sleepily.

“Yeah. Chaos can keep an eye on us if we go into the forest a little so he can stay out of sight. We need to stay as well rested as we can if we want to keep pace and make it to Cianwood before the JRAC gets wise.”

“You’re probably right.”  We let Chaos lead us about a half mile or so into the forest before we found a decent clearing with enough room to set up the tent.

It was a little smaller than I had realized. It was about the size of an extra long twin sized bed. The floor of the tent was nice and plush like a bed, and a few small pillows even popped up on the back of the inside of it.

“It’s going to be a little bit of a squeeze for… for…” I lost my tongue a little as Carly unabashedly removed all of her clothes beside her bra and underwear. Hard to think it so often skipped my mind how beautiful she was. She drowsily climbed into the tent and nuzzled up to the pillows.

“There’s plenty of room, you goofball. Don’t be shy. Get in here.” She said with a smile. I put the clothes she left on the grass in her bag, then took my own pants off and carefully climbed inside. As soon as I laid down next to her, she immediately nuzzled into what I’d heard called the ‘little spoon.’ My heart started beating very fast as her soft bare skin touched mine. “You’re so warm…” She said sleepily, pulling my arm around her, just beneath her breasts. She turned her head and kissed me goodnight. “Sleep tight.”

_How in the hell am I supposed to sleep like this!?_ I thought, trying to stay still as she stirred, the friction against her starting to stir long stifled emotions. I waited until I heard her start to snore before ever so carefully sneaking out of the tent and letting her rest. I didn’t want her getting cold, so I put my jacket over her as she lay deeply asleep. Outside the tent, I put my pants, socks and shoes back on and took a deep breath of the crisp twilight air.

_Can’t sleep?_ Chaos leapt gingerly out of a tree to the ground, then laid at the mouth of the tent.

_You could say that. Danger, death, hatred, blood, rage... all that junk is a cake walk compared to love. It’s terrifying. I haven’t gotten that close to another human being since the last time I kissed my mother goodnight. That is, unless you count almost choking someone to death._

_Understandable,_ Chaos said smirking.

_I mean, really. 613155 and I saw each other every day for a whole year. He was a Pokémon maniac like I was… he was so happy and optimistic, and we did everything together. We looked out for each other, covered for each other. That day, we  were getting ganged up on by some older boys…. All over them trying to steal my simulator. His dad was a black belt in karate and judo before he and his mother died when the S.S. Anne IV sunk. He knew a thing or two himself, and even showed me a few things._

_They grabbed the simulator from me and started playing keep away. It was all fun and games until 613155 decided to roundhouse kick one of their knees out. Two of them went after him and started pummeling him. I jumped on one of their back and squeezed their neck with all my strength.  The dust settled and he took the blame for taking the first swing, since the last time the guards got their hands on me they broke my arm when I covered for him for taking an extra helping of food a few months before that. I guess he figured it’d make us even… but then they pulled the clubs out._

_I’m sorry._ Chaos said, peering out into the forest and sniffing at the air. _It does seem like he was a very good friend. However, I got a peek into Carly’s mind when she put that hat on. She feels very strongly for you. And I can tell you reciprocate._

_Yeah, but what happens from there? I mean, I was always sure I loved her, from the first moment her hands touched mine all those years ago, but most things I love have a tendency to die horrible, horrible deaths. And I mean… I don’t know if she’s had boyfriends or whatever before…_

_She hasn’t,_ he said bluntly.

_Really?_

_Yes. From what I gathered in the few moments we spoke, she’s only ever had eyes for you. Aside from that she’s spent practically every waking moment in that restaurant that she wasn’t in school. You saw her all of, what, once per season? In all that time, even with the time in between, she always had this romanticized reservation for you. She had to beat the boys away with a stick between her looks and that big brain of hers. She never so much as thought of a boy like that aside from you._

_God…_ I contemplated the thought for a moment. _So that means I was her first kiss?_

_Yes._

_It seems unfair that I’m hearing all this from you. Almost like cheating at a game._

_Well, that’s one way of looking at it. Another way would be to say that we’ve got much bigger fish to fry, what with being charged to save the world and all. The least I can do is give you a little leg up on something your self-esteem has made you too dumb to realize._

I chuckled a bit.

_I’m a lucky guy, I guess._

_No. You’re much more than that. Luck has had a little to do with it, but it would mean nothing if you weren’t the man you’ve become. Your father would be proud._

_You don’t have to suck up to me just so I’ll scratch behind your ear,_ I said, sitting down next to him and reaching behind his head.

_Oh good. For what it’s worth, everything I’ve said is true. She is absolutely infatuated with you, and has been since you were young. She’s been saving herself until she knew if anything would happen between the two of you before she moved on. Six long years of spending four to five days a year with you, now three days straight of almost non-stop danger and she still isn’t sick of you. I think it’s a sign._

_So, now I have a girlfriend…_ I pondered that for a moment. _A cute one at that. A damn_ genius _to boot._ I smiled and looked up at the stars through the canopy.

_And she’s here with you, after having run away from home, become a fugitive, change her appearance and continuously push the limits of her own psyche to stand by your side, even now that she sees the dangers we all face. You’ve given her plenty of chances to back out over the last few days, and now you’re in a secluded forest, and she’s practically naked waiting for you to come to bed. Get back in that tent and love her, you idiot._

I smiled and, without a word, stripped back down to my underwear and climbed back into the tent. As I took my jacket off of her and pulled her close to me, she roused slightly, turning back and looking at me.

“Something wrong?” she said.

I didn’t say anything, just shook my head, smiled, and kissed her neck gently, running my hands over the soft skin on her ribcage. She stirred and cooed a little as I continued to run my hands over her curves. I leaned up only for a moment, to pull the zipper down on the door of the tent. 

“And here I thought I was being too subtle,” She whispered to me as she ran her fingers through my hair, pulling me in to kiss me again.

_Try to keep it to a dull roar in there._ Chaos said.

_Shut up,_ I said, turning my focus to the stunning woman in my arms.    


	14. A Lucky Glitch

The sun rose too soon as we lay entwined in the little tent. I awoke before she did, admiring the peacefulness of her visage as she nuzzled her face into my chest, in all her bare glory. From the look of the shadows cast by the trees cast on the tent, it was still pretty early in the morning.

“Wakey wakey,” I whispered into her hair. She stirred at bit, opened her eyes and smiled.

“Hi,” she said coyly, stretching a little before retaking her spot on my chest.

“We have to get going soon if we want to make it to Olivine by nightfall,” I said, tracing my finger along her shoulder blade. She giggled.

“Can we just sit here, just a little while longer?” She said into my chest sleepily.

How could I say no.

_You still out there?_ I called out to Chaos.

_Yes. There are quite a few people out this morning. I should retreat into the ball soon._

_We’ll be out shortly,_ I told him. I had a feeling that moments like this would be few and far between.

About ten minutes later, I came out of the tent and dressed myself, not before handing Carly the bag with her clothes in it. A few moments later, I recalled Chaos into the black pokéball, putting it on the last slot on my belt so it was more or less hidden under the back of my jacket. Rosie was in the first slot, and four empty balls took the last slots. After thinking for a moment, I took Rosie’s ball off my belt and let her out.

“Bulb?” She said as she materialized, looking around.

_She thinks it’s time to fight._ I could hear Chaos from inside of his ball.

_Good to know you can still hear me in there._

“No, we have quite a walk to Olivine City, I figured you’d like getting a chance to stetch your legs and bask enjoy the sunlight. Besides, it will definitely distract everyone’s suspicions if I’m walking with a Pokémon that’s clearly not a big black hellhound.”

Rosie shrugged, then nodded, taking a deep breath and stretching out her limbs.

Carly let Houdini out. She knelt down in front of the smiling croc once he appeared.

“Listen… Flaafy is very sad, and I think you would do a great job cheering her up.”

Houdini nodded thoughtfully as Carly reached for Flaafy’s pokéball and let her out. She was still visibly distraught and mopey, looking at the ground as Carly stroked her wooly mane and nodding westward as the rest of us started heading back toward the road. She lagged behind a bit us, with Houdini walking next to her.

“I hope she’ll be okay,” Carly whispered to me as the road came into view ahead of us. From behind us we suddenly hear the distinct guffaw of a happy lamb, as Houdini pretended to trip and fall, only to start walking on his front claws, backward, making faces at Flaafy as he went. It was nice to see her smile after a shock like she took. Houdini then did a somersault into Flaafy, tripping her up, then catching her, laughing, on his shoulders.

“All wounds heal with the right medicine,” I said to Carly with a smile as we finally reached the road.

There were quite a few people out walking back and forth on the road, which was a relief to me. Always much easier to blend the more faces there were. Rosie kept rushing ahead, insisting on leading the pack. I had to call her back to my side a few times before I decided she was fine so long as I could still see her. She had a lot of energy, I only wish I had an outlet for her.

Houdini was quite the strong little Pokémon, supporting the slightly larger Flaafy on his shoulders with ease. As we walked along the tree line, staying out of the busy crowd’s way, it was almost disturbing how little anyone spoke or even looked away from the path in front of them. Hours passed to the shuffle of dirt beneath the feet of people and the occasional Pokémon. The time passed thankfully quickly as the sun barely shone through the clouds. It was the late afternoon before we knew it, and we approached a sign that read:

 

Pokémon outside of their balls beyond this point will be confiscated.

These rules exist for your safety.

Thank you

Johto Regional Administrative Council

Olivine Branch

 

“That can’t be right…” Carly said as we stopped. “I can’t even see the Glitter Lighthouse yet. We’re still like… ten or fifteen miles out from Olivine. This should still be an unincorporated travel route.”

“That is a bit strange, even for them. Rules are rules, though. No point in taking unnecessary risks. In you go, girl,” I said to Rosie. She was huffed as I recalled her.

“That goes for you two, too.” The walk with Houdini left Flaafy in much better spirits before they were both called back into their balls. We continued hand-in-hand down the road in tentative contented silence as JRAC guards began to outnumber civilians while the Lighthouse slowly came into view over the trees. The city limits had only just come into view down the road when we were startled to hear:

“HEY, YOU TWO!” A voice came from behind us. We both stopped, and Carly squeezed my hand. I winked at her, mouthing the word _relax._ A guard approached us as we turned on foot and smiled warmly to the guard.

“Can we help you, officer?” I said as cordially as I could muster.

“We’re out doing random bag checks with the recent terrorist attack in Ecruteak. For your protection of course.”

“Of course…” I said, my heart sinking a bit as I remembered the wads of cash in my bag. The officer pulled out a modified pokédex with a scanner attachment as two more walked up behind us.

_Relax. Remember, my pokéball will register as broken and empty._

_Yeah, and what about all the cash sitting in my bag?_

_I don’t know what to tell you, but if you need me, I’m ready._

I took a deep breath as the officers less than gently patted the two of us down.

“Hey, take it easy,” I said as I saw the distress on Carly’s face.

“Don’t tell me how to do my job, kid. We’re almost done. So… you’ve got a Flaafy and… ooh a Totodile! Where did you manage to get that?”

“A… a breeder just outside of Azalea Town. My parents bought it for me for my eighteenth birthday.” She said, stuttering less than I expected her to.

“Ah hah… and you… a Bulbasaur and… What’s this black pokéball?”

“An old failed experiment. I keep it with me for good luck.”

“What sort of experiment would that be?”

“It was the first pokéball he tried to make out of an apricorn,” Carly said quickly. “I was showing him one day and that was his first try back a couple of years ago when we first met.”

“I see. May I?” The guard held his hand out. I reluctantly held the ball out for him. He played with it for a moment, shaking it and pressing the button, and to my relief, nothing happened and he handed it back to me.

“Very cute. Two young lovers out playing trainer, eh?”

“I guess you could say that,” I said, putting my arm around Carly and squeezing her shoulder. “I’m just glad we have you brave men out here looking out for us lowly citizens.”

“Hey Boss! Take a look at this!” One of the guards said who rummaged through my bag. They must’ve found the cash. I reached slowly behind my back for Chaos’s pokéball, looking around to see how many guards were in the vicinity. Just then, my Pokédex beeped loudly and incessantly.

“What the hell is that thing making so much noise for?” The guard in front of us said, ripping it from my hand before I got a chance to even look at it.

“This kid’s got… must be $40,000 in here. Cold hard cash.”

“Leave it,” The guard with my pokédex said as he perused the screen.

“What?” he said, clearly disappointed.

“It was an authorized cash transaction from a secured JRAC-certified bank account in Azalea Town. We touch a penny of it and we’re screwed,” he said, double checking the digital signature.

“Lemme see that,” the exasperated guard said as he carelessly dropped my bag and looked at the pokédex entry, which I was still perplexed about.

_You have anything to do with this?_ I asked Chaos.

_I can read and write, but do you really think I can work a pokédex with these claws?_

_Good point._

“Sure enough. It’s signed off on by Giuseppe from Azalea. But, what I want to know is, what do you need with that kind of money in cash?”

“I…I’m afraid I haven’t been completely honest with you, sirs. It’s for… our wedding!”

Carly’s face when I said that was some strange combination of surprise and horror that I personally found fantastic enough to smile genuinely at the guards.

“A wedding, you say?”

“Yes… we’re looking to spare no expense, and I know how difficult it is to book a venue with the wonderful seaside view Olivine offers. I wanted to make sure I was fully prepared to pay in full, in advance, in cash so we could focus on setting a concrete date and not have to worry so much about the rest. I wanted it to be a surprise.”

“Well, I’m certainly surprised…” Carly said, punching me in the ribs. I winced and laughed all at once.

“Well, cheers, and here’s hoping you find what you’re looking for here in Olivine!” The guards returned our bags to us and kept heading back toward the way we’d just come from. I looked at the pokédex, and sure enough there was a notarized certificate signed off by Giuseppe in the “Documents and Certifications” application.

_How did that get there…_ I thought as I scrolled through the pokédex to see if anything else had changed. The screen glitched a couple of times, then resumed normal function. I sent a message through the secure channel in text form to Jonathan, asking if he had anything to do with it.

“You won’t hear from him right away. I looked at the communication software; it has a really sophisticated encryption program as a failsafe in case the message was somehow intercepted. Might take a couple of hours. So you really don’t know how that certification got there?”

I shook my head, befuddled.

“Some lucky glitch,” I said idly as I finished the message, sent it, then closed the pokédex and put it in my back pocket.

“Funny way of proposing,” She said, punching me in the ribs again.

“Hey, no need to be so violent. It was the first thing that came to mind!”

“Really?”

I smiled at her and nodded as the sun began to set and the clock in the town center struck seven, with the Lighthouse getting larger and larger as we approached the edge of town.

“Well, we’ve only really been together a few days. I’d be remiss if I didn’t make you work for _that_ much.”

“Fair enough,” I said as we finally made our way into Olivine.


	15. Making Friends

I’d never been to Olivine, but apparently Carly had.

“Yeah, a few years back I had to go with my dad over a copyright issue over the POS system I tweaked for Slowbro Joe’s. It was kind of funny, really…” She regaled the story as we walked down the well-lit, well-paved Olivine main road. “He said I was being annoying, wanting to see the sights, to go over by the harbor to see if any Pokémon were swimming around. He said I was embarrassing him with my attitude, he was so mad…

“We met in that restaurant just down the street from the gym,” she pointed it out down just down to the west. “I sat there quietly nibbling on fish sticks as he talked to some man and some lawyer, and I overheard a couple of things they were saying. My dad was speechless, about to sign something when I stopped him. I started getting really technical with my questions, in terms of the interface and base operating systems for a few minutes, then looked over the contract. I had to get up on a stool so I could see it. The men laughed at first, until I pulled out my big glasses and a highlighter marker, showing them the fallacies they claimed on the alleged similarities. I told them that would be laughed out of any legitimate court, and that I would advise my father to countersue over the dates of the materials they intended to bring, since from what it looked like, they actually tried to copy _my_ designed, which I applied for a copyright not long after I finished the base coding.

“After they packed up and left with their tail between their legs, my dad took me out to the Harbor while the moon was full. It was so beautiful.” She smiled with nostalgia in her eyes.

“I can see why they wouldn’t want to let you go… have you always been like that?”

“Like what?”

“Brilliant?”

She blushed.

“I guess so… I tested out of grade school before I was ten, and high school the next year. If we had a really good year, my folks would sign me up for classes at Ecruteak Technical about a mile south of the Home. I never got enough for a degree or anything, but there wasn’t a class that I didn’t end up acing pretty easily. I really love to learn, and machines, codes… they just sort of make sense to me.”

“Heh… I just got my high school equivalency a few months ago. You’re really something special, I hope you know that.”

She kissed me on the cheek and took me by the hand down the street toward the restaurant.

“Last time I was here, this place was pretty popular. Best fried fish in town, they say. I figure that if we were going to find out anything, we grab something to eat and keep our ears open.”

The sign read “King Seaking,” with a smiling Seaking donning a golden crown on its horn.

“I don’t see much security around here…The guards must be more heavily concentrated in the extended city limits, monitoring people as they came in as opposed to keeping an eye on the people in the city itself,” I said quietly to her as we approached the restaurant nonchalantly.

“Makes sense. Not like they could come from anywhere else.”

The heavy wooden doors of creaked open to reveal an interior teeming with what I understood to be normal folk. Fishermen, sailors, families with children yelling and playing. I took Carly’s hand and walked up to the hostess, requesting a table for two.

“Twenty minute wait,” she said, clearly with her hands full. There were people waiting along the wall on benches. “You can wait at the bar so long as you’re of age. Just have your pokédex open to the ID screen to save the bartender some time.”

I nodded, then gestured for Carly to join me at the two open stools at the stained oak bar. A few burly sailors sat at one end, puffing away at cigars and playing some kind of dice game. We took a seat on the end closest to the door, and when I pulled a few bills out of my backpack, the bartender quickly made his way down toward our end.

“What can I getcha?” The swarthy mustached bartender was clearly eying the crisp bills I procured.

I looked to Carly, who shrugged.

“Two of whatever you have on tap that’s dark enough not to see through,” I said. The bartender winked at me and whisked down for a couple of clean glasses.

“I don’t really like brown soda…” Carly whispered to me.

“I ordered a couple of beers.”

“Oh…” She seemed embarrassed. “I’ve never drank a beer before. My dad quit drinking when I was really young.”

“Every once in a while I’d steal a few from the guards’ coolers. I don’t think they were supposed to drink on the job, so I never felt too bad slipping a few in my pockets here and there. It doesn’t taste all that great, but once it sinks in, it can really take the edge off.”

The bartender returned with two big steins full of a dark lager with a light head.

“That’s the house specialty. We brew it right here in Olivine. It’s a bit on the strong side, so drink slow, okay kids?”

I smiled and slipped him a fifty.

“Keep the change,” I said.

“Thanks much, m’boy!” He winked at me again and went back down to the men at the other end of the bar, chatting them up a bit. We both took a sip of our glasses. Carly winced as she gulped it down, then coughed.

“Pretty strong,” I said.

“Yeah…not that bad though,” she said as she took another small sip. She winced less this time.

“Take it slow, sweetheart,” I said, taking another sip myself, wiping the foam from my lip and looking around the bar. As we awaited auditory happenstance to help us figure out our next move, a couple of the sailors who were talking hushedly to the bartender made their way down by us.

“You roll bones, kid?” At a bit over six foot tall, I still stood above these men. One came up to my chin or so, the other came to eye level with me. However, both of them had the hardened visage and bulkiness of years of hard labor in the sun on the salty ocean. They looked like they were somewhere in their forties, scraggly and greasy, age lines prominent on their brows and eyes. The shorter one had a thick salt-and-pepper beard, and was thick with hair and muscle. The other was balding, clean-ish shaven and more wiry.

_He means the dice,_ Chaos said.

_If I could smack you, I would._

“Not really,” I said, noticing from the corner of my good eye that Carly was guzzling down that over-size stein thirstily. “I don’t suppose you gentlemen know when the ferry will be heading out for Cianwood?”

“You’re looking at her captain,” the shorter man said, smirking.

“When’s the next one heading out?”

“Since that non-sense in Ecruteak, they’ve been denying civilian passage.”

“Damn… that’s too bad. I’ve got an uncle down there that’s… he’s not well…” I trailed off, noticing that Carly had asked for another beer.

_This is NOT looking good,_ I said to Chaos.

“That’s too bad… see, we still have to head down there for commercial purposes, and I suppose I could sneak you and your lass there… that is, if you can manage to win a few rounds down at our end here. We’re short a player for cards, which is why we’ve been tossing dice. I’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse… you deal in with us for a few rounds so we can up the ante pool a bit, and I’ll make sure you two are on the next boat heading that way.”

_Do you know how to play cards enough not to lose all of your money?_

_I’ve seen the guards play for quarters a few times… how hard could it be?_

I looked over at Carly again. Another beer gone.

_God damn it._

“Deal.”

“Well, alright then!” He said, clapping me on the back and shooting a look down at his friends at the end of the bar.

_I hope you know what you’re getting yourself into._

“Hey,” I said to Carly, who was spinning on the chair and giggling. “Come on, we’re gonna play cards with these guys for a little while, and they’re going to get us on that boat to Cianwood.

She hiccupped.

“Just come on over here with me, and don’t wander off…” I pulled another $50 from my bag and motioned to the bartender. “Hey, make with some fish sticks and fries. There’s another fifty in it for you if you hurry the hell up about it.” The bartender nodded and rushed off to the kitchen.  “When the food comes, make sure you eat all of it, okay?”

She smiled drunkenly at me as I took her by the hand and sat her just the other side of me at a round table, swaying a bit to the low folk music that played in the background.

“The game’s five card draw. You know it?” The captain said as he dealt out the cards. I nodded. Carly laid her head on my shoulder as she looked at my hand and sighed.

“Can I have another beer?” She asked with a dazed grin.

“After you eat,” I told her quietly.

“White chips are 100, blue are 500, red are 1000, the buy-in’s five grand, We’ll play to the end of the deck and see where we stand.” The captain said as he divvied out the chips. I pulled a banded stack from my backpack and put it in the middle of the table.

A few rounds in, I was only down about a $1000 and wasn’t too worried. I would have just as easily given the old bastard the stack just to get on the stupid boat. It really didn’t bother me to lose it the hard way. I guess it made him feel better about himself to scam a kid out of his money. We got down to the last hand and it was just me and the captain, who called me all-in. I pushed all my chips into the middle of the table. I put down a jack-high straight, but no luck on my end as he showed three aces and two tens. I feigned disappointment, throwing my cards down as the captain raked in the chips.

“Fair enough. So when are we leaving?”

“I dunno, there, kid… it’s a lot of risk on my end. We might need to play another round…”

“Let’s just get out of here,” Carly said, slapping my arm with the back of her hand. “We don’t want to make a deal with a _cheater_ anyway.” The table went silent and looked at her, then the captain.

“No need to be a sore loser, lass,” he said with a derisive chuckle.

“You _are_ a cheater. The skinny, smelly one already played the ace of spades two hands ago. I’m just shocked that none of you idiots noticed since you were playing through a single deck. Go ahead and check the discard pile if you don’t believe me. Oh hey! My fish sticks!” She stumbled over to the bar and started choking down the plate of battered salty treats. The captain stood up from the table with an angry look in his eye. I stood between him and Carly with my hands up.

“Listen, I said I don’t care. I would have just as easily paid you the five thousand outright to get aboard the ship. You want the money, keep it. We’ll find our own way to Cianwood.”

“Nobody,” he said angrily, “calls me a cheat.”

He made another step to grab at Carly. I whipped the big bowie knife out in a flash and held the edge to his throat. His eyes transitioned quickly from anger to fear as his comrades at the table jumped up to go to his aid. I had a fist full of his greasy locks and didn’t break my gaze.

“You don’t have the stones, boy.” He sneered as I held the knife steady against his gullet.

“Any of you make another step toward her and I won’t have a problem proving you wrong,” I said.  

He gritted his teeth and snarled at me, then smiled.

“You fight Pokémon?” He asked, the knife still pressed to his throat. His friends at the table sat back down as he waved at them lowly with his hands behind him.

“Interesting choice of last words.”

“I’ll make you a deal no one can cheat on. I underestimated you, and for that I apologize. Anyone who’d pull out a blade like that in a public place sure ain’t JRAC, so I don’t mind tellin’ ya.”

“I’m listening.”

“Do you mind…?”

I didn’t break my gaze as I pulled the knife slowly away from his neck, released his hair, and took a step back toward the bar. He coughed, turned around, and returned the banded stack to me.

“We can’t talk about it here. Too many open ears.” He rubbed the red spot on his neck.

“Fair enough,” I said.

“By the way, the name’s Harry. Captain Harry Gruesome.”

“Mac,” I said, shaking his hand.

“C’mon, boys. We still have cargo to load before we take off tomorrow night.”

Captain Gruesome and his three mates got up from the table and ambled out of the restaurant.

I sheathed the knife and turned back over to Carly.

“You okay?” I asked her. She torpidly looked up from her fish plate, which was now empty, and wiped some crumbs from her face.

“What happened? Can I have another beer now?” She said with an innocent smile.

_God damn it._


	16. Going Underground

Needless to say, I didn’t let Carly have another beer after that, though she couldn’t figure out why for the life of her. I wasn’t mad per say, but I felt like I had a responsibility to protect her, and she wasn’t making it particularly easy. It was enough that she was a full foot shorter than me, couldn’t weigh more than a hundred and twenty pounds to my one-ninety or so, and that the extent of her world experience was the insides of different restaurants or technological devices. Her tech savvy was invaluable, but I came that close to killing a man while she drunkenly woofed down greasy bar food.

She sobered up slightly after managing to keep her food down so I could explain what had transpired. A thousand apologies and hugs later, we made our way down near the harbor to wait for Captain Gruesome. Security was almost disturbingly lax inside the city as we managed to practically walk right along the shoreline as the moon shone low in the cloudless sky. We walked hand-in-hand along the harbor’s edge, quietly listening to the sound of the water beating up against the steel and concrete walls that sat about ten feet above the sea’s level. I sat her up on a row of barrels and drank in the salty ocean air, looking out onto the horizon, keeping an eye out for Pokémon unsuccessfully.

The big clock tower in the town center struck eight… one hour until curfew.

“Gotta love the smells and sounds of the sea,” Captain Gruesome appeared from behind us. Carly jumped a bit.

“Evening,” I said, nodding to him.

“Hi…” Carly said, looking down. “Sorry I called you a cheater. I’ve never drank beer before and…”

“Har! Don’t you worry there, little lass. Truth be told, I did. Pegged you two for Goldenrod trust fund babies with money to spare. Your sharp eyes and Mac here’s sharp blade showed me that weren’t quite so.”

I smirked, Carly tried to force a bit of a smile, looking at him through the bangs that fell into her face.

“So, you were saying before, about another deal?”

The captain looked around a few times to make sure no one was in sight, then spoke to me in a whisper.

“Aye. You ever hear of the Underground Battle Circuit?”

I shook my head.

“How’d’ya think there’s any trainers worth a God damn in this region, what with the borders and mandatory moderators?”

“Never gave it much thought,” I said, cracking my neck and listening intently.

“The entrances are hidden. While back, a few blokes took a few teams of Digletts and Dugtrios  and let ‘em loose deep in the forest. They tunneled down like the little moles do, and carved out quite a few pretty good sized caves in four different spots in Johto. The caves are all easily the size of a large Pokémon gym with their own attached Pokémon center and PokéMart. A few of ‘em even have a hotel carved into it. The three out toward the east are a bit smaller, but you just so happen to be a couple hour’s walk from the grand-daddy of ‘em all.”

“Is that a fact?” I said, extremely interested.

“Aye. They call it the Fox Hole. Remarkable bit of technology, that… rechargeable generators run by Pokémon, hidden ventilation system to keep fresh air flowin’. Whole thing’s reinforced with brazed steel and concrete… and everything runs analog.”

“Really?” Carly asked.

“Well, they have to if they wanna stay under the radar. JRAC would really clean house on a joint like that. The walls that line the place block incoming and outgoing signals from GPS and wireless communication, and the doorway is locked and hidden with an old Wild Folk trick.”

“Apricorns…!” Carly exclaimed, her eyes widening.

“You are quite the sharp one, aren’t ya?” Gruesome said with a chuckle, pulling a wooden-looking cylinder with a half-sphere at the end of it. I recognized it from some of the old books my dad would let me read through. It was half of a black apricorn, with a small metal device inside of the hollowed out shell. It was a little smaller than a coconut.

“They’re quite popular in the circles that run through the Underground. Most people prefer them to modern pokéballs since they’re unreadable with the high-tech scanning equipments tending t’ be tuned in to balls they sell in the region ‘round here. Trouble is it’s a lot harder not to break or lose with ‘em bein’ so bulky and all that. It’s much of the key to the low-tech mechanisms in the Fox Hole.”

“So, where is this place?”

“I can only give you this key, and an approximate location. People been brutally maimed for suggesting a map be made, should they come into the wrong hands. I’ll have to send word ahead that two pokédexes will be heading in that direction; you can only get in by invitation, and only if they know you’re comin’.”

He pulled out a pokéball and called out a Fearow, who ruffled its feathers and spread its massive wings menacingly. “Woah there, boy… you know what to do,”  He pulled out a small strip of paper, wrote two tally marks on it, then tied the note to its foot, and let it take off like a rocket into the sky. It flew out toward the ocean.

“I’m guessing he has to circle back and take the long way around,” I said as the Fearow seemed to disappear in a matter of seconds.

“Aye. Trained him specifically on the route that takes him a nice long way around to avoid any suspicion. The Underground has only been around for about six years or so, but he never had so much as the thought of a tail on him the way I taught him. They got their ways of keepin’ an eye out for digital signatures so’s to block the hell outta that door if the wrong people head that way. Long as it’s just the two of you, once you find the door, they’ll let ya in.”

“You mentioned something about a deal.”

“Ah yes. Well, there’s a tournament happening tonight, shortly after the curfew bells chime here in Olivine. That’s nigh upon an hour or so from now. Ya seem like a tough young man, and if your Pokémon are half as tough as you, you’ll make it to the final round without a lot of trouble. You remember the name of the arena?”

“The Fox Hole?”

“Well, it never used to have a name. That is, until Maebel came along. She disappeared over the winter, but word is that she returned in the wake of that terrorist attack in Ecruteak. She ain’t never been beat out as champion in five years. You manage to take her out, and I’ll take you to Cianwood free of charge.”

“Really?” I said in disbelief.

“Don’t think I’m doin’ ya any favors. Her record before she left was something in the neighborhood of 200-0. She’s a battle-hardened fugitive, and she doesn’t pull her punches. Truth be told, any money you give me wouldn’t be worth spit if you’re not strong enough to handle the trip.”

“Fair enough, I suppose. Let’s have those directions; I’d rather get there sooner than later.”

 

We slipped out of the city well before curfew, as the guards seemed more concerned with anyone coming in rather than going out. I went over the directions in my head.

 

A mile and a half north of the city limits.

Go west, look for the old battle frontier signs.

Make sure no one is following you.

Walk about ten minutes at a breeze pace.

Make sure no one is following you.

Walk about a half an hour north.

_Make sure no one is following you._

Look for the rock that looks like a Ninetails.

Walk east for a minute or so.

You’ll see the knot.

Watch your feet.

 

Once we were clear of the road, I let Chaos out to help us with find this hidden cave.

_See if you can’t Odor Sleuth a shortcut for us, brother._

_I’ll see what I can do._

He bounded ahead into the forest once I recanted the directions, and just to be safe, continued on our way as instructed. There were the occasional ruins of some sort of buildings in the forest that his directions led us around. The great rock he spoke of looked like it was once a statue of a Ninetails that had worn away gradually over years and years. As I went to examine the thing more closely, I heard him.

_Found it._

Just to the east, sure enough, was a knot with a strange, star-shaped hole in it, which the “key” that Gruesome had given me fit perfectly into.

_I’m gonna let Rosie compete in the tournament first. I don’t want you getting any unneeded exposure; I’m not really sure what to expect down there._

_Understood,_ he said as I recalled him into his pokéball.

Carly stood at my side as I gave the key a firm half turn. The ground beneath us shuddered, and I pulled her away from the rumbling slab of grass that started creaking beneath our feet.

“You sure you want to do this?” Carly asked me as I pulled the key from the lock and put it in my bag.

“Of course. Worse comes to worst, we’ll have a place to hide long enough to come up with a different plan. And besides, don’t tell me the prospect of checking out a low-tech system that’s managed to stay hidden from the JRAC this long doesn’t make you the tiniest bit curious.”

The almost mischievous smile she shot my way seemed to imply that she nearly forgot about that. I smiled back and took her hand as we descended the long dark staircase. About twenty steps down the door cranked shut behind us, and we followed the low light ever downward.


End file.
